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Unravelling the origins of musicality: Beyond music as an epiphenomenon of language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Henkjan Honing Open the ORCID record for Henkjan Honing [Opens in a new window]
Henkjan Honing*
Affiliation:
Amsterdam Brain & Cognition, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands. honing@uva.nl https://www.mcg.uva.nl/hh
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Abstract

The two target articles address the origins of music in complementary ways. However, both proposals focus on overt musical behaviour, largely ignoring the role of perception and cognition, and they blur the boundaries between the potential origins of language and music. To resolve this, an alternative research strategy is proposed that focuses on the core cognitive components of musicality.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e78
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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