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Running head: MUSIC: AN INNATE ABILITY
Music: An innate ability?
Christine DiBello
Millersville University
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MUSIC: AN INNATE ABILITY
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Music has puzzled investigators for years due to its apparent lack of purpose and
mysterious origins. Although many theories have been suggested, it has proven difficult to study,
and no one explanation is widely accepted. Music’s ubiquitous, unique, and long-standing
presence in human culture, infants’ sensitivity to music, and music’s ability to unite large groups
of people suggests that humans are born with an innate ability to produce and engage in music.
However, the fact that some animals have also shown musical sensitivity, that this musical
sensitivity may be a property of the human auditory system, and that the brain processes music
similarly to language, all suggests that music might not be an inherent human feature. An
evolutionary approach can be used to study the issue of whether or not music is an innate ability
in order to discover more about the capabilities and hidden characteristics of both current human
culture and past human ancestors.
Psychologists have spent years attempting to explain how a phenomenon that has no
obvious purpose beyond pleasure and that requires so much time and energy could prevail so
strongly throughout human culture. In trying to explain humans’ attraction to music, Charles
Darwin remarked that “…neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are
faculties of the least use to man… they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which
he is endowed” (McDermott, 2008). Despite this confusion, music has grown in all parts of the
world to become an integral part of daily life. Indeed, it would be difficult to avoid music in
modern society as it pervades restaurants, shopping malls, theaters, movies, cars, and radios as
background noise that would leave a substantial gap if not present. Understanding what compels
humans to both enjoy and produce music would lead to discoveries about human culture and
natural instincts.
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Music’s resemblance to language and language processing means that discoveries about
possible innate musical abilities would also contribute toward discoveries about language. Both
are acquired by exposure through an unconscious, largely effortless ability, both are processed
through overlapping brain regions, both require a sensitivity toward slight tonal changes and
rhythm, as well as a strong short term memory, and lastly, both are curiously unique to humans
(Hauser & McDermott, 2003; McDermott, 2008). Studying music will illuminate not only the
relationship it has with language, but it will also provide information about human language
acquirement and brain processes. Therefore, the human ability to automatically acquire
information can be understood and harnessed.
If music is ultimately contributed to innate abilities, it carries certain implications for
human ancestors. Some of the most popular theories about music’s origins postulate that it stems
from ancient human vocal calls or bonding rituals. If such explanations are accepted as truth,
then other inferences can be made about how human ancestors lived, evolved, and
communicated with each other, leading to a more thorough understanding of human evolution.
Furthermore, through this research, other human characteristics may be found to have
evolutionary origins. For example, if it is accepted that music was used as a social bonding
technique, then it can also be assumed that humans lived in small, close-knit groups, were loyal
and emotionally close to each other and therefore might have practiced altruism.
The Evolutionary Approach
The commonalities found in music across the globe are one factor that might suggest a
genetic influence (McDermott, 2008; McDermott, 2009). The importance of music in rituals, the
tendency to dance or tap one’s foot to a beat, and musical structural properties such as periodic
rhythms, scales with unequal step sizes, and uneven pitch-occurrence distributions that
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emphasize particular notes over others are found all over the globe despite large variations in
culture (McDermott, 2008; McDermott, 2009). Lullabies are one example of such a global
phenomenon, as they are found in nearly every culture and sound similarly in several aspects
such as their repetitious nature, slow tempos, and descending note patterns (McDermott, 2008;
Weinstein, Laurnay, Pearce, Dunbar, & Stewart, 2016). A sensitivity adapted specifically for
music is one explanation for these ubiquitous characteristics. Such a sensitivity can be seen in
humans at birth as they show musical abilities that suggest an evolutionary adaptation.
Virtala, Huotilainen, Partanen, Fellman, and Tervaniemi (2013) conducted an experiment
with 19 sleeping infants (mean age = 1.7 days). EEG recordings were taken as the infants were
exposed to major root chords, inverted major chords (2nd inversion), minor root chords, and
dissonant chords. The major root chords elicited early negative responses (frontal electrodes) and
later positive responses (parietal electrodes). A positive response in the frontal electrodes was
shown in response to dissonant chords while a negative response in the parietal electrodes was
found in response to the minor chords. There were no significant responses to major inverted
chords.
These results suggest that infants are sensitive to the differences between
dissonant/consonant and major/minor chords. The fact that dissonant chords were processed in
the frontal lobes while consonant chords were processed in the parietal lobes further suggests
that these sounds may be processed differently in the infant brain. Major and minor chords might
also be automatically discriminated; however, although minor chords are often considered
melodic in Western culture, they are still dissonant and this discrimination could be an extension
of the dissonant/consonant discrimination. Other studies conducted on musically untrained
school-aged children were unable to elicit similar results. Virtala and colleagues suggest that this
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discrepancy might be due to a sensitivity that disappears without musical training (2013).
Overall, the sensitivity toward the major/minor and consonant/dissonant dichotomies may
indicate that, like language, humans are born with a predisposition toward learning music.
Infants have also demonstrated sensitivity toward relative pitch, one of the basic and most
important factors in music as well as speech. First, it is important to understand the difference
between relative and absolute pitch. An absolute pitch consists of the fundamental frequencies of
a tone, while a relative pitch does not- instead it is recognized by its relationship with the notes
around it (Platinga & Trainor, 2005). For example, when “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is
played in the key of C and then again in the key D, adults will easily be able to recognize it due
to the phenomenon of relative pitch. On the other hand, that adult might not be able to sing the
exact notes played- in other words, their absolute pitch. Researchers Platinga and Trainor
experimented with infant’s preference for absolute versus relative pitch in two separate
experiments.
First, Platinga and Trainor (2005) familiarized 32 infants (mean age = 6.02 months) with
one of two folk songs (“Country Lass” or “Tough Plough” chosen because they were unlikely to
have been previously heard) by having them listening to the song on repeat for three minutes a
day for seven days. On the eighth day, the infants were exposed to the now familiar tune as well
as the unfamiliar one. The infant was seated between two speakers with a toy situated beneath
each. When the toy began to flash, the infant looked over, and one of four transposed versions
(up/down a perfect fifth, and up/down a tritone) of the familiar tune would begin to play and
continue until the infant looked away. The procedure was repeated with the other speaker, which
played a transposed version of the unfamiliar tune. When the average listening time across ten
familiar music trials and ten unfamiliar music trials were complied, it was found that infants
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looked significantly longer in order to hear the new song (Platinga & Trainor, 2005). Because
infants were more intrigued by the novel song, it follows that they were able to store the
familiarized tune in long-term memory as well as recognize it across a relative pitch
transposition (Platinga & Trainor, 2005).
Platinga and Trainor’s (2005) second experiment tested 32 infants’ (mean age = 6.1
months) ability to store absolute pitch information in long term memory. The same four
transpositions of the same two folksongs were used with the exact same procedure. However,
during the testing phase, they were exposed to either the familiarized melody in the exact pitch
that the infant learned at home or a transposed version of the same familiar tune. No preference
was shown to either version of the song, suggesting that infants do not retain absolute pitch in
long term memory, and further suggesting that infants remember melodies in terms of relative
pitch (Platinga & Trainor, 2005). The fact that even infants can recognize familiar tunes through
relative pitch suggests that musical abilities might be innate.
The ability to hear relative pitch is one that is unique to humans, a further implication that
it is due to a music-specific adaptation rather than a general auditory function (McDermott,
2009). McDermott and Houser (2005) reviewed experiments which demonstrate this fact. Birds
were trained to respond to descending but not ascending note patterns. Despite being able to
generalize to other rising and falling melodies, the pattern of their responses suggests that they
memorized the absolute pitch frequencies of the notes in the training melodies and used it as a
standard against which the novel melodies were judged. They were unable to generalize their
responses to melodies that had been transposed up or down an octave (McDermott & Houser,
2005). Although this experiment was conducted using Starlings, it has been replicated using
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several other species of birds, all of which produced similar response patterns suggesting that
birds cannot recognize relative pitch (McDermott & Houser, 2005).
Similar results have also been found in monkeys (McDermott & Houser, 2003;
McDermott, 2009). According to a review by McDermott and Hauser (2003), when rhesus
monkeys were trained to judge melodies as similar or different, they were able to classify two
melodies as the same when they were transposed up or down one or two octaves. However, this
generalization was found only for melodies from the diatonic scale (not the atonal scale).
Furthermore, when the melodies were transposed by 0.5 or 1.5 octaves, they were judged as
different (McDermott & Houser, 2003). Again, this study underlines the fact that relative pitch is
a phenomenon only found in humans, with the possible exception of the aforementioned octave.
Lastly, music has been shown to decrease pain thresholds and increase feelings of
connectivity when preformed in groups. Weinstein, Laurnay, Pearce, Dunbar, and Stewart’s
(2016) study provided results that exemplify this point. Taking advantage of the group structure
of the choir known as Popchoir, the researchers used it to measure how group singing effects the
creation and maintenance of social bonds. Popchoir is a large singing group (n = 232) composed
of smaller choirs (n = 20-80) that meets up several times a year. Participants gave pain threshold
measurements and self-report measures of social bonding during small group rehearsals and
again after 90 minutes of large group singing. Feelings of inclusion, connectivity, positive affect,
and measures of endorphin release were all significantly greater in the large group condition.
These results demonstrate that large group singing can lead to increases in positivity,
social bonding, and pain thresholds. In other words, music can help large groups of 200+
relatively unfamiliar people bond. The social bonding effects of music might have been
especially important in humans’ evolutionary past. It has been theorized that prehistoric humans
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lived in small hunter-gatherer groups that occasionally met up with other small groups from
distant areas in order to create and maintain social bonds. These gatherings would have been
instrumental in sharing knowledge, resources, and access to possible mates.
Group singing and dancing may have promoted unity between small groups, encouraged
information sharing and therefore increased fitness. This theory explains the evolutionary
advantage of music. Those born with an innate predisposition for music may have had an
advantage over those unable to bond with the group during large gatherings, ensuring that their
offspring also had a similar predisposition. Such an innate musical sensitivity may still exist
today, as seen in the experiment performed by Virtala and colleagues (2013).
In sum, many experiments seem to suggest that humans have an evolutionary talent for
music. Infants have shown the ability to tell the difference between consonant/dissonant and
major/minor chords, as well as to perceive relative pitch. This is a trait unique to humans as
animals are unable to detect relative pitch, further indicating an adaptive musical ability. Lastly,
music has demonstrated a possible origin in its capacity to facilitate social bonding, feelings of
inclusion, and connectivity.
Non-Evolutionary Approach
Despite the above evidence, it is not enough to conclusively state that music is an
innately adapted human trait. It is difficult to distinguish between adaptive traits and naturally
learned cultural knowledge, between innate musical talent and general auditory abilities, and
between innate musical abilities and innate language abilities. It may be impossible to ever
definitively tell if humans adapted specific abilities to engage in and listen to music.
The innate abilities to distinguish consonant/dissonant notes and relative pitch may be the
result of learning (McDermott & Houser, 2003). As discussed earlier, music is found
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everywhere- to the point where it would be difficult to avoid. Since both learning and hearing
first begin in the womb, infants begin forming concepts about their culture’s music even before
birth. Therefore, the innate abilities to recognize relative pitch and the difference between
consonance and dissonance may be a result of this in-utero exposure. Experiments that attempt to
remove such an exposure are not only impractical but could also be unethical.
Abilities that could be incorrectly perceived as innate may be general skills of the
auditory system. For example, the aforementioned study on rhesus monkeys (McDermott &
Houser, 2003) showed that they have some musical sensitivity in recognizing melodies from the
diatonic scale that were transposed up or down one or two octaves. Therefore, some perceptions
of music are not unique to humans but are an auditory skill found in other mammals. However,
previous exposure to music must be taken into account, even here, as many enclosures provide
TVs for the monkeys, a possible confounding variable (McDermott & Houser, 2003).
McDermott, Lehr, and Oxenham (2008) conducted a study that demonstrates this
phenomenon. They investigated if pitch contours could be recognized when replicated in other
dimensions. Seventeen undergraduate students (mean age = 21.82) served as subjects that were
presented two melodies and told to judge whether the contour of the melody was similar or
different on a scale of 1 – 4 depending on their confidence level. The first melody varied from
the second in pitch, brightness, or loudness while also being transposed, or replicated in a
different range of dimensions, so that relative representations would have to be recognized.
Although subjects were best at recognizing melodies that were similar in pitch, they were also
able to tell when melodies were the same in brightness and loudness. These results indicate that
relative representations of change in successive sounds may be a general feature of the auditory
system (McDermott, Lehr, & Oxenham, 2008). As the recognition of contours is not pitch
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specific, it may be unlikely that such an ability evolved specifically for music. Animals’ inability
to recognize relative pitch may reflect a general inability to see relationships between successive
stimuli rather than an inability to perceive relative pitch (McDermott, Lehr, & Oxenham, 2008).
Lastly, it cannot be determined that music is not simply an offshoot of language abilities.
There are large overlaps between the neural functions that govern language syntax and those that
govern music syntax (McDermott, 2009). A recent study conducted by Koelsch and colleagues
examined ERP brain responses to visually presented sentences accompanied by aural chord
sequences. The sentence contained a grammatical or semantic error while the chord sequence
contained a chord that was dissonant. The size of the ERP in processing incorrect sentences was
smaller when accompanied by “incorrect” chords, possibly because the linguistic processing
interfered with the musical processing (or vice versa) due to shared neural mechanisms (Koelsch,
S., Gunter, T.C., Wittforth, M., & Sammler, D., 2005, as cited by McDermott, 2009).
In conclusion, more experimentation is needed to discover if music is indeed an innate
ability. However, it may be impossible to ever conclusively state if engagement and listening to
music is an adapted trait. Infants’ supposedly natural ability to perceive relative pitch and the
difference between consonant/dissonant and major/minor chords could be the result of previous
musical exposure or indeed a general auditory ability. Furthermore, as linguistic and musical
abilities share neural mechanisms, it is possible that musical ability is simply an offshoot of
innate linguistic abilities.
Future Directions
This field has proven to be a difficult one to study due to inherent barriers, including the
long history of music and its universality. Music is a temporal art form and leaves behind no
physical traces, making it nearly impossible to study before its written form, and making fossils
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of little use (McDermott, 2009). Humans are the only species on the planet that engage in
making and listening to music, limiting the field of study considerably. Furthermore, seeing as
music engages so many different brain areas, the usual approach of altering a physical trait is
unfeasible and unethical to perform on humans (McDermott, 2009). Furthermore, it is nearly
impossible to distinguish between innate musical abilities and those that have been culturally
learned due to the fact that humans begin both hearing and learning in the womb. Finally,
researchers may never be able to fully distinguish between innate language skills and innate
musical skills.
Despite these constraints, there are many directions in which the study of music can go as
it is a largely undiscovered field. Attention should be directed to infants’ ability to detect beat
and meter, as well as their interest in music. The beat, or rhythmic unit, is universally found in
music but supposedly lacking in human speech (McDermott, 2009). If human infants are able to
detect beats inherent in music but missing from speech it will provide substantial evidence that
humans have an evolutionary adaptation for musical abilities. Thus far, some ability to detect
beat has been discovered, but it is unclear if this ability is due to a general auditory function.
Similarly, meter, or the grouping of beats, will serve to further shed light on this topic. Meter
perception remains an important area of study because there is no obvious auditory mechanism
that could lend itself to meter perception. Therefore, if infants are inherently able to detect it, it
might suggest a purely innate musical talent that did not evolve from an auditory mechanism.
Lastly, a drive to listen to music would also suggest an evolutionary preference (McDermott,
2009).
When humans experience music it is usually within the context of other activities, such as
social gatherings, rituals, or celebrations. Therefore, music must also be studied in these
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environments in order to fully understand them, rather than through an individual’s perspective.
Breaking music down into separate components such as beat, meter, and pitch, while helpful,
may be oversimplifying it. Music and its effects on social groups should be studied as it naturally
occurs in human culture (McDermott, 2009).
Yet another area of potential research is the comparison between human music and
animal vocalizations. Although human singing and animal calls are not analogous due to several
differences (for example, animal songs are limited to males for specific purposes, their main goal
is communication, and they elicit no emotion), their analysis can still shed insight on human
perception of music (McDermott & Houser, 2003). Structural auditory constraints present in
humans may also be present in animals. If animal calls evolved to be easy to remember, shaped
by these evolved constraints, it then follows that there may be similarities between human music
and animal calls (McDermott & Houser, 2003).
These suggested topics of study are only a few of the current directions of the field. In
addition, human studies should be repeated and replicated with animals whose previous exposure
to music can be carefully controlled in a laboratory setting (McDermott & Houser, 2003). How
human exposure to music alters reaction and knowledge of music and whether such a change can
be seen in animals is also of key interest (McDermott & Houser, 2003).
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References
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McDermott, J., & Hauser, M. (2005). The origins of music: Innateness, uniqueness, and
evolution. Music Perception, 23, 29-59.
McDermott, J. (2008). The evolution of music. Nature, 453, 287-288
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