Prelinguistic evolution in early hominins: Whence motherese?

Falk, Dean

doi:10.1017/s0140525x04000111

Cited by 350 publications

(259 citation statements)

References 285 publications

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“…A particularly clear example of musical behaviour involving close kin is the use of song between mothers and infants (Dissanayake, 2000), apparently found in all cultures and thus as ubiquitous as music itself (Trehub & Trainor, 1998). This parallels the equally striking ''musical'' use of language observed from parents to their young offspring, often termed ''motherese'' (Falk, 2004;Fernald, 1992). Again, the possibility that such interactions are simply precursors to or side-effects of early language maturation must be borne in mind, as should the fact that the ''musical'' aspects of motherese and other paralinguistic prosody do not share key design features with music (such as discreteness in frequency and time).…”

Section: Mother/infant Songmentioning

confidence: 65%

“…The use of lullabies to soothe infants to sleep is apparently a human universal, practiced quite effectively in all cultures (Trehub, 2000). Given the potential detrimental effects of crying or upset infants throughout our evolutionary history, parentsÕ success in achieving this goal could be of considerable adaptive relevance to the evolution of song (Falk, 2004). Similarly, the use of play songs to arouse infants, focus their attention, and strengthen the mother-infant bond is both widespread and potentially adaptively relevant (Trehub, 2003).…”

Section: Mother/infant Songmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

2006

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Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this paper, I present a comparative perspective on the biology and evolution of music, stressing the value of comparisons both with human language, and with those animal communication systems traditionally termed ''song''. A comparison of the ''design features'' of music with those of language reveals substantial overlap, along with some important differences. Most of these differences appear to stem from semantic, rather than structural, factors, suggesting a shared formal core of music and language. I next review various animal communication systems that appear related to human music, either by analogy (bird and whale ''song'') or potential homology (great ape bimanual drumming). A crucial comparative distinction is between learned, complex signals (like language, music and birdsong) and unlearned signals (like laughter, ape calls, or bird calls). While human vocalizations clearly build upon an acoustic and emotional foundation shared with other primates and mammals, vocal learning has evolved independently in our species since our divergence with chimpanzees. The convergent evolution of vocal learning in other species offers a powerful window into psychological and neural constraints influencing the evolution of complex signaling systems (including both song and speech), while ape drumming presents a fascinating potential homology with human instrumental music. I next discuss the archeological data relevant to music evolution, concluding on the basis of prehistoric bone flutes that instrumental music is at least 40,000 years old, and perhaps much older. I end with a brief review of adaptive functions proposed for music, concluding that no one selective force (e.g., sexual selection) is adequate to explaining all aspects of human music. I suggest that questions about ARTICLE IN PRESSthe past function of music are unlikely to be answered definitively and are thus a poor choice as a research focus for biomusicology. In contrast, a comparative approach to music promises rich dividends for our future understanding of the biology and evolution of music.

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Section: Mother/infant Songmentioning

confidence: 65%

Section: Mother/infant Songmentioning

confidence: 99%

The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

2006

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“…This is further exacerbated by the absence of a grasping toe in A. afarensis (38,39), the elimination of dorsal riding as an option for infant hominids (40), and the possibility that body hair was thinning by 3.3 Myr ago (41). With a limited capacity to grasp, Australopithecus infants may have been parked (42) or actively carried by their bipedal mothers, at times leaving these females with only a single arm free for climbing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution

DeSilva

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

143

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It has long been argued that modern human mothers give birth to proportionately larger babies than apes do. Data presented here from human and chimpanzee infant:mother dyads confirm this assertion: humans give birth to infants approximately 6% of their body mass, compared with approximately 3% for chimpanzees, even though the female body weights of the two species are moderately convergent. Carrying a relatively large infant both preand postnatally has important ramifications for birthing strategies, social systems, energetics, and locomotion. However, it is not clear when the shift to birthing large infants occurred over the course of human evolution. Here, known and often conserved relationships between adult brain mass, neonatal brain mass, and neonatal body mass in anthropoids are used to estimate birthweights of extinct hominid taxa. These estimates are resampled with direct measurements of fossil postcrania from female hominids, and also compared with estimates of female body mass to assess when human-like infant:mother mass ratios (IMMRs) evolved. The results of this study suggest that 4.4-Myr-old Ardipithecus possessed IMMRs similar to those found in African apes, indicating that a low IMMR is the primitive condition in hominids. Australopithecus females, in contrast, had significantly heavier infants compared with dimensions of the femoral head (n = 7) and ankle (n = 7) than what is found in chimpanzees, and are estimated to have birthed neonates more than 5% of their body mass. Carrying such proportionately large infants may have limited arboreality in Australopithecus females and may have selected for alloparenting behavior earlier in human evolution than previously thought.climbing | hominin | Homo | cooperative breeding

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“…The literature regarding the use of babytalk is inconsistent. Falk (2004) reported that infants prefer babytalk (BT) over adult-directed speech (ADS), a way of talking that does not show specific modifications for children. Bendixen and Pelaez (2010) found that the use of BT resulted in higher canonical babbling in a 12-month old infant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%