Abstract
The most recognized feature of music is the capacity to arouse emotions in listeners: are such emo¬tions inherent to music (indexes) or are they evoked by resemblance to an analogous emotional expression (icons)? The claim is that music is a conventionalized imitation of an expression of an emotional state (i.e., a symbolized iconic index), but to reach this form three evolutionary steps in human thinking are required: individual, joint, and collective intentionality, which parallel the emergence — and overlap — of indexes, icons, and symbols. Providing a comparative view of the genetic and neuroanatomical infrastructures required for the emergence of music, it will be hypothesized that: (i) music is rooted in ape vocalizations as an index of emotions performed by individual-intentionality agents; (ii) with the capacity for recursive mindreading of joint-intentionality agents, music evolved as an iconized index of emotions; (iii) as a consequence of demographic changes, collective-intentionality agents created musical instruments in order to reduce the structural complexity of the sign aiming at coordinating in joint musical activities and culturally transmitting symbolized iconic indexes of emotions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.25.8535
Highlights
The most recognized feature of music is the capacity to arouse emotions in listeners: are such emotions inherent to music or are they evoked by resemblance to an analogous emotional expression? The claim is that music is a conventionalized imitation of an expression of an emotional state, but to reach this form three evolutionary steps in human thinking are required: individual, joint, and collective intentionality, which parallel the emergence — and overlap — of indexes, icons, and symbols
Providing a comparative view of the genetic and neuroanatomical infrastructures required for the emergence of music, it will be hypothesized that: (i) music is rooted in ape vocalizations as an index of emotions performed by individual-intentionality agents; (ii) with the capacity for recursive mindreading of jointintentionality agents, music evolved as an iconized index of emotions; (iii) as a consequence of demographic changes, collective-intentionality agents created musical instruments in order to reduce the structural complexity of the sign aiming at coordinating in joint musical activities and culturally transmitting symbolized iconic indexes of emotions
Speaking, a crucial role in the vocal learning ability is played by the basal ganglia, which links the auditory inputs to the motor outputs (Patel, 2006) and it is important for sequential movements (Doupe & Kuhl, 1999) as well as for processing temporal patterns in both language and music (Grahn, 2012); the left hemisphere appears to be dominant for both language and songs (Fitch & Jarvis, 2013)
Summary
“Let me die” says Arianna (Lamento d’Arianna, Monteverdi, 1607): her voice is in a low register, words are spoken slowly interleaved with some breaks. According to Peirce (1931/ 1958), the relation between a sign and its referent can occur in indexical, iconic, and symbolic ways: an index is a sign that has a causal connection with its referent (smoke is causally connected to the presence of fire), an icon is a sign that maintains a sensorial resemblance (a portrait resembles the depicted person), and in a symbol, such link is arbitrary (the word “dog” has neither resemblance, nor causal connection with the referent “dog”) These sign qualities have been recently used by Koelsch (2011a; 2012) for a taxonomy of musical meanings: an index signals the psychological state of an individual (e.g., emotion, mood, intention), an icon is a musical imitation of an extra-musical sound (e.g., dog, elephant, thunderstorm), and a symbol is conventionally or idiosyncratically associated to an extra-musical event (e.g., national anthem, ringtone, jingle). Music is a means for sharing emotions, which is specific to humans (Tomasello, 2008; Corballis, 2011)
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