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Language & Linguistics
Music is a universal feature of human societies, which suggests that an evolutionary perspective should help us understand our appreciation. The reward (pleasure) system of the brain offers a suitable framework. The primary evolutionary advantage is probably related to the importance of language; features of sound, such as purity, harmony, complexity, and rhythmicity, are useful for facilitating oral communication. One would expect evolution to associate rewards with these qualities in order to stimulate the development of brain regions involved in interpreting and producing relevant sounds. There are additional adaptive aspects of music, such as relaxation, social coherence, and sexual selection. Music can be regarded as a superstimulus that accentuates and exploits rewards associated with hearing. As such, music is not necessarily adaptive in a biological sense, but serves the purpose of improving quality of life.
- music
- hearing
- behavior biology
1. Introduction
Most people can easily distinguish music from other sounds; in fact, an interest in music appears to be a universal human feature [1,2]. Tribal cultures do not have advanced instruments but create music in the form of song and rhythm; the first instrument found, in the form of a flute, dates back some 40,000 years [3]. Further evidence, as to an innate component of musical appreciation, are, for one, that the capacity appears to arise spontaneously in infants [4]; and two, that music has a powerful effect on the human psyche [5,6].
To the extent that the phenomenon is innate, an evolutionary perspective should help explain why we care about music, and, possibly, suggest what features of music tingle our brain in a way that cause the engagement. However, music is also a social phenomenon that serves various functions in a community [7]. A biological explanation can only account for the inborn aspects; cultural traditions may be more important when examining the role of music in a particular society. For example, in several African cultures, drumming is an important component of rites of passage.
In order to understand our fascination with music, it is appropriate to consider the way human brains use rewards and punishment to guide behavior [8]. Aesthetic experiences are about how particular types of sensory input cause our brains to offer rewards in the form of enjoyment. Humans have a variety of senses, including vision, hearing, touch, and smell. Stimulation of any of our senses can activate rewards and punishment, in the form of pleasure and pain, where pain is used for any type of negative experience. Aesthetic experiences are primarily related to hearing and seeing. As to music, the question is why certain types of auditory stimuli are processed in a way that causes them to activate pleasure and, one may add, why this form of pleasure is so easily amenable to and enhanced by human creativity.
The brain receives a multitude of auditory input. Much of it is neutral, that is, it activates neither pleasure nor pain. Some of it is hideous, most people dislike the sound of chalk on a blackboard, but a considerable variety of sounds has the potential of inducing pleasure.
Sounds are simply variations in air pressure registered by the eardrum and translated to neuronal signals in the cochlea. Humans do not have the most sensitive ears, in terms of signal strength and frequencies registered, but we may have the most advanced neurological processing of sounds. Signals from the cochlea are sent by the auditory nerve to the thalamus and then passed on to the auditory cortex where the main part of the processing and interpretation presumably occurs. Translating minor variations in air pressure into language and recognizing not only where the sounds come from but who is speaking, are extraordinary tasks. It is to be expected that the brain needs to develop this capacity as we grow up.
All mammals have a capacity to hear, but only humans have developed this faculty into oral language. Although music can play a role in communication, the spoken word seems to be superior for that purpose. Consequently, listening to or creating music seems unlikely to be directly important for survival; it is a paradox that people, nevertheless, devote so much time and energy to doing just that. The obvious explanation is that it makes them feel good. The reward system is meant to stimulate adaptive behavior, but if the spoken word is superior for the highly adaptive purpose of communication, why care about music? I shall suggest an answer to this question. The topic is partly covered in a previous book [9].
As pointed out above, music has a communicative aspect, which means it is important to distinguish between the pure enjoyment of the sounds and possible rewards connected with the associations fostered. Love songs may, for example, stimulate some of the positive feelings involved in love. The present focus is on features of music that are not communicative. These features appear to be reasonably universally recognized and appreciated across human cultures [10].
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/encyclopedia2020074
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