Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T15:10:46.969Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Understanding the origins of musicality requires reconstructing the interactive dance between music-specific adaptations, exaptations, and cultural creations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Laurel J. Trainor*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour; McMaster University, West Hamilton, ONL8S4B2, Canada. LJT@mcmaster.ca; https://trainorlab.mcmaster.ca/

Abstract

The evolutionary origins of complex capacities such as musicality are not simple, and likely involved many interacting steps of musicality-specific adaptations, exaptations, and cultural creation. A full account of the origins of musicality needs to consider the role of ancient adaptations such as credible singing, auditory scene analysis, and prediction-reward circuits in constraining the emergence of musicality.

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

Bregman, A. S. (1990). Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilbron, M., & Chait, M. (2018). Great expectations: Is there evidence for predictive coding in auditory cortex? Neuroscience, 389, 5473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.07.061.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huron, D. (2001). Tone and voice: A derivation of the rules of voice-leading from perceptual principles. Music Perception 19, 164. doi: 10.1525/mp.2001.19.1.1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huron, D. (2006). Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of expectation. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salimpoor, V. N., Zald, D. H., Zatorre, R. J., Dagher, A., & McIntosh, A. R. (2015). Predictions and the brain: How musical sounds become rewarding. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19, 8691.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schultz, W. (2013). Updating dopamine reward signal. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23, 229238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2012.11.012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trainor, L. J. (2015). The origins of music in auditory scene analysis and the roles of evolution and culture in musical creation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal British Society B: Biology, 370, 20140089.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trainor, L. J. (2018). The origins of music: Auditory scene analysis, evolution and culture in musical creation. In Honing, H. (ed.), The origins of musicality (pp. 81112). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Trainor, L. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2015). The neurobiology of musical expectations from perception to emotion. In Hallam, S., Cross, I. & Thaut, M. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music psychology (2nd ed., pp. 285305). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar