Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T05:00:45.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Musicality was not selected for, rather humans have a good reason to learn music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Shir Atzil
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem91905, Israel. shir.atzil@mail.huji.ac.il; https://scholars.huji.ac.il/atzillablior.abramson@mail.huji.ac.il
Lior Abramson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem91905, Israel. shir.atzil@mail.huji.ac.il; https://scholars.huji.ac.il/atzillablior.abramson@mail.huji.ac.il

Abstract

We propose that not social bonding, but rather a different mechanism underlies the development of musicality: being unable to survive alone. The evolutionary constraint of being dependent on other humans for survival provides the ultimate driving force for acquiring human faculties such as sociality and musicality, through mechanisms of learning and neural plasticity. This evolutionary mechanism maximizes adaptation to a dynamic environment.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrieta, M. C., Stiemsma, L. T., Amenyogbe, N., Brown, E., & Finlay, B. (2014). The intestinal microbiome in early life: Health and disease. Frontiers in Immunology, 5, 427. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2014.00427.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Atzil, S., Gao, W., Fradkin, I., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Growing a social brain. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9), 624636. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0384-6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Atzil, S., & Gendron, M. (2017). Bio-behavioral synchrony promotes the development of conceptualized emotions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 162169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.009.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baldassano, C., Hasson, U., & Norman, K. A. (2018). Representation of real-world event schemas during narrative perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(45), 96899699. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0251-18.2018.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barrett, L. F., & Simmons, W. K. (2015). Interoceptive predictions in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(7), 419429. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernardi, L., Porta, C., & Sleight, P. (2006). Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: The importance of silence. Heart, 92(4), 445452. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.2005.064600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cirelli, L. K., Jurewicz, Z. B., & Trehub, S. E. (2019). Effects of maternal singing style on mother–infant arousal and behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(7), 12131220. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01402.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Den Ouden, H. E. M., Daunizeau, J., Roiser, J., Friston, K. J., & Stephan, K. E. (2010). Striatal prediction error modulates cortical coupling. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(9), 32103219. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4458-09.2010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, R., Keren, M., Gross-Rozval, O., & Tyano, S. (2004). Mother–child touch patterns in infant feeding disorders: Relation to maternal, child, and environmental factors. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 43(9), 10891097. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.chi.0000132810.98922.83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldstein Ewing, S. W., Claus, E. D., Hudson, K. A., Filbey, F. M., Yakes Jimenez, E., Lisdahl, K. M., & Kong, A. S. (2017). Overweight adolescents’ brain response to sweetened beverages mirrors addiction pathways. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 11(4), 925935. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9564-z.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815836. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1622.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleckner, I. R., Zhang, J., Touroutoglou, A., Chanes, L., Xia, C., Simmons, W. K., … Feldman Barrett, L. (2017). Evidence for a large-scale brain system supporting allostasis and interoception in humans. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(5), 114. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0069.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Konečni, V. J., Wanic, R. A., & Brown, A. (2007). Emotional and aesthetic antecedents and consequences of music-induced thrills. American Journal of Psychology, 120(4), 619643. https://doi.org/10.2307/20445428.Google ScholarPubMed
McEwen, B. S., & Wingfield, J. C. (2003). The concept of allostasis in biology and biomedicine. Hormones and Behavior, 43(1), 215. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0018-506X(02)00024-7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pezzulo, G., Rigoli, F., & Friston, K. (2015). Active inference, homeostatic regulation and adaptive behavioural control. Progress in Neurobiology, 134, 1735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2015.09.001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, D. J., Heitzeg, M. M., Koeppe, R. A., Stohler, C. S., & Zubieta, J. K. (2006). Variations in the human pain stress experience mediated by ventral and dorsal basal ganglia dopamine activity. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(42), 1078910795. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2577-06.2006.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seth, A. K. (2013). Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(11), 565573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.09.007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sterling, P. (2012). Allostasis: A model of predictive regulation. Physiology and Behavior, 106(1), 515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkow, N. D., & Morales, M. (2015). The brain on drugs: From reward to addiction. Cell, 162(4), 712725. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.07.046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winberg, J. (2005). Mother and newborn baby: Mutual regulation of physiology and behavior – A selective review. Developmental Psychobiology, 47(3), 217229. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.20094.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed