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Knowledge songs as an evolutionary adaptation to facilitate information transmission through music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Daniel J. Levitin Open the ORCID record for Daniel J. Levitin [Opens in a new window]
Daniel J. Levitin*
Affiliation:
Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA dlevitin@minerva.kgi.edu; www.daniellevitin.com Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada
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Abstract

I propose an adjunct to the two models presented in the target articles, a function of music that is ubiquitous and would have solved a clear adaptive problem, that of transmitting important survival information among pre-literate humans. This class of knowledge songs uniquely preserved cultural, botanical, medical, safety, and practical information that increased the adaptive fitness of societies.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e105
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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