Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-7zcd7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-06T22:57:49.621Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The evolution of music as artistic cultural innovation expressing intuitive thought symbolically

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Valerie van Mulukom Open the ORCID record for Valerie van Mulukom [Opens in a new window]
Valerie van Mulukom*
Affiliation:
Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, Innovation Village IV5, Coventry CV1 2TL, UK. valerie.vanmulukom@coventry.ac.uk; https://valerievanmulukom.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Music is an artistic cultural innovation, and therefore it may be considered as intuitive thought expressed in symbols, which can efficiently convey multiple meanings in learning, thinking, and transmission, selected for and passed on through cultural evolution. The symbolic system has personal adaptive benefits besides social ones, which should not be overlooked even if music may tend more to the latter.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e91
Check for updates
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alcorta, C. S. (2013). Religious ritual and modes of knowing: Commentary on the cognitive resource depletion model of ritual. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 3(1), 55–58.10.1080/2153599X.2012.736705CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atran, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2004). Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(6), 713–730.10.1017/S0140525X04000172CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, B. (2009). On the origin of stories: Evolution, cognition, and fiction. Harvard University Press.10.2307/j.ctvjf9xvkCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, J. (2012). The truth about fiction: Biological reality and imaginary lives. Style, 46(2), 129–160.Google Scholar
Charles, S., van Mulukom, V., Brown, J. E., Watts, F., Dunbar, R., & Farias, M. (2020a). United on Sunday: The effects of secular rituals on social bonding and affect. PLoS ONE, 16(1), e0242546. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, S., van Mulukom, V., Farias, M., Brown, J. E., Delmonte, R., de Maraldi, E. O., … Dunbar, R. (2020b). Religious rituals increase social bonding and pain threshold. PsyArXiv, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/my4hs.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Deacon, T. W. (1998). The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. WW Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Dissanayake, E. (2009). The artification hypothesis and its relevance to cognitive science, evolutionary aesthetics, and neuroaesthetics. Cognitive Semiotics, 5, 136–191.10.1515/cogsem.2009.5.fall2009.136CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitch, W. (2013). Rhythmic cognition in humans and animals: Distinguishing meter and pulse perception. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7, 68.10.3389/fnsys.2013.00068CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
James, W. (1950). The principles of psychology, vols. I and II. Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Lang, M., Bahna, V., Shaver, J. H., Reddish, P., & Xygalatas, D. (2017). Sync to link: Endorphin-mediated synchrony effects on cooperation. Biological Psychology, 127, 191–197.10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.06.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Launay, J., Tarr, B., & Dunbar, R. I. (2016). Synchrony as an adaptive mechanism for large-scale human social bonding. Ethology, 122(10), 779–789.10.1111/eth.12528CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M., Nusbaum, H., & Thisted, R. (2010). The absorption hypothesis: Learning to hear God in evangelical Christianity. American Anthropologist, 112(1), 66–78.10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01197.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, R. A. (2013). Music, health, and well-being: A review. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 8(1), 20635.10.3402/qhw.v8i0.20635CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tasuji, T., Reese, E., van Mulukom, V., & Whitehouse, H. (2020). Band of mothers: Childbirth as a female bonding experience. PLoS ONE, 15(10), e0240175.10.1371/journal.pone.0240175CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Elk, M., van der Zwaag, W., Arciniegas, A., van Schie, H. T., & Sauter, D. (2019). Reduced default mode network activity during the experience of awe. Human Brain Mapping, 40(12), 3561–3574.Google ScholarPubMed
van Mulukom, V. (2017). Remembering religious rituals: Autobiographical memories of high-arousal religious rituals considered from a narrative processing perspective. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(3), 191–205.10.1080/2153599X.2016.1232304CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Mulukom, V. (2020). The evolution of imagination and fiction through generativity and narrative. In Carroll, J., Clasen, M. & Jonsson, E. (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on imaginative culture (pp. 53–70). Springer.10.1007/978-3-030-46190-4_3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Mulukom, V., Patterson, R., & van Elk, M. (2020). Broadening your mind to include others: The relationship between serotonergic psychedelic experiences and maladaptive narcissism. Psychopharmacology, 237, 2725–2737.10.1007/s00213-020-05568-yCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zaidel, D. W. (2018). Culture and art: Importance of art practice, not aesthetics, to early human culture. In Christensen, J. F. & Gomila, A. (Eds.), Progress in brain research (Vol. 237, pp. 25–40). Elsevier.Google Scholar