Abstract:

Language and music considered as cognitive systems form a mosaic, consisting of multiple components as parts with different evolutionary origins (Boeckx, 2013; Fitch, 2006). From a comparative language-music perspective, some of these components might be shared and based on the same evolutionary genesis, the others might be different and emerged independently in the course of evolution. Till now, theoretical as well as empirical research worked out several candidates for shared and distinct components (Jackendoff, 2009; Koelsch, 2012; Patel, 2008; Peretz, 2013). However, their evolutionary origins and the way how those several components work together are still unclear. In the current paper, this issue is discussed within an action-oriented framework. An action-oriented approach is promising because of the following reasons: First, current findings suggest that shared structural and processing aspects are not specific to language and music, i.e. complex action is also organized in an asymmetrical hierarchy, comprises temporal integration process, and involves neural resources (e.g. Broca’s area) shared with language and music (Jackendoff, 2009; Koelsch, 2012). Second, action-based research provides us with an opportunity to consider the issue of evolutionary continuity. Based on findings from cognitive neuroscience (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2013; Hickok & Poeppel, 2007; Patel & Iversen, 2014; Rauschecker & Scott, 2009), especially by focusing on the function of Broca’s area and the dorsal auditory stream, I suggest, in line with other hypotheses (Boeckx & Fujita, 2014; Fitch & Martins, 2014), action as cognitive phylogeny of the capacity for processing hierarchical structures of temporal sequences in language and music. Moreover, the way how this domain-general capacity is put into use in different cognitive systems is investigated within an action-based framework exploring language and music in terms of goal of action, action planning, motor control, and sensory-motor integration. This framework enables us to investigate similarities and differences of different cognitive systems at the same time. I focus on domain-general, action-based mechanisms for motor control and sensory-motor integration playing an important role in the evolution of musical rhythm (Merchant et al., 2015; Patel & Iversen, 2014) and discuss their relationship to the evolution of speech and language.



References

Boeckx, C. (2013). Biolinguistics: forays into human cognitive biology. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 91, 1–28.

Boeckx, C., & Fujita, K. (2014). Syntax, action, comparative cognitive science, and Darwinian thinking. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 627.

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Schlesewsky, M. (2013). Reconciling time, space and function: a new dorsal-ventral stream model of sentence comprehension. Brain and Language, 125(1), 60–76.

Fitch, W. T. (2006). The biology and evolution of music: a comparative perspective. Cognition, 100(1), 173–215.

Fitch, W. T., & Martins, M. D. (2014). Hierarchical processing in music, language, and action: Lashley revisited. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1316(1), 87–104.

Hickok, G., & Poeppel, D. (2007). The cortical organization of speech processing. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 8, 393–402.

Jackendoff, R. (2009). Parallels and Nonparallels between Language and Music. Music Perception, 26(3), 195–204.

Koelsch, S. (2012). Brain and Music. Chichester, West Sussex; Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Merchant, H., Grahn, J., Trainor, L., Rohrmeier, M., & Fitch, W. T. (2015). Finding the beat : a neural perspective across humans and non-human primates.

Patel, A. D. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Patel, A. D., & Iversen, J. R. (2014). The evolutionary neuroscience of musical beat perception: the Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) hypothesis. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8, 57.

Peretz, I. (2013). The Biological Foundations of Music: Insights from Congenital Amusia. In D. Deutsch (Ed.), The Psychology of Music (3rd ed., pp. 551–564). London: Academic Press.

Rauschecker, J. P., & Scott, S. K. (2009). Maps and streams in the auditory cortex: nonhuman primates illuminate human speech processing. Nature Neuroscience, 12(6), 718–724.

Download Paper (pdf)

Citation:

Asano R. (2016). Towards An Action-oriented Approach To The Evolution Of Language And Music. In S.G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Fehér & T. Verhoef (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11). Available online: http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/146.html