![]() A recent survey of primates, using a continuous measure of acoustic musicality, suggests that many other species-including galagos, several lemurs, and some old-world monkeys-also exhibit calls with music-like qualities. Calls with western musical attributes are primarily ascribed to species of gibbon, tarsier, indri, and potentially also marmoset, tamarin, and titi monkeys. Music-like behavior, however, also appears in many other animals including non-human primates. ![]() Music is a singular behavior humans exhibit via the creation of patterned sounds organized, for example, along rhythmic and melodic dimensions. ![]() For example, in music that promotes group cohesion, like military marches, rhythm tends to have a fundamental role, while pitch’s importance can vary widely between melodic marches to exclusively rhythmic ones that lack any melody. Music forms are represented as having a highly important role of both pith and rhythm, but this can obviously change. The red arrow represents the transition in meaning, from emotional to referential, of parent-infant communication becoming more referential as the infant grows. Blue circles represent functions included by Brown, while red circles represent forms included in our model, but not present in the original musilanguage model. In addition to Brown’s original meaning axis (diagonal axis, from referential to emotional), the location of each function is located according to the importance of rhythm (vertical axis) and pitch (horizontal axis) in conveying such meaning. (b) Hypothetical location of different functions of human acoustic communication, following Brown’s musilanguage model. Coloured Xs represent influences that derive in specialisation and different communicative behaviours. Music exploits both pitch and rhythm in more precise manners than other forms of communication, and language depends more on propositional syntax and semantics, and less on precise rhythmic or melodic patterns. Musicality is presented as a simplified convergence of pitch and rhythm processing, which promotes parent-infant communication and bonding, primarily infant-directed vocalisations (proto-IDS) through pitch, and behavioural synchronisation through rhythm. (a) Model for the evolution of musicality and its role in human vocal communication. By integrating several theories, our model presents a radically different view of musicality, not limited to specifically musical scenarios, but one in which this capacity originally evolved to aid parent-infant communication and bonding, and even today plays a role, not only in music but also in infant-directed speech (IDS), as well as some adult-directed speech (ADS) contexts. The model can be further tested in other species by comparing levels of sociality and complexity of vocal communication. These social bonds were not limited to those between offspring and mothers or other carers, although these may have been especially influential in view of altriciality of human infants. We suggest that a complex social environment, with strong social bonds, promoted the appearance of musicality-related abilities. Based on this, we propose a model for the evolution of musicality –the capacity to process musical information– in relation to human vocal communication. ![]() Studies show that specific vocal modulations, akin to those of infant-directed speech and perhaps music, play a role in communicating intentions and mental states during human social interaction. ![]()
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