ACTAS DEL X ENCUENTRO DE CIENCIAS COGNITIVAS DE LA MÚSICA

HOMO MUSICUS: ARE HUMANS PREDISPOSED TO

BE MUSICAL?
ELLEN DISSANAYAKE
UNIVERSITY OF W ASHINGTON

Abstract
Human mothers interacting with infants universally produce unusual vocal, visual, and
kinesic signals that are sometimes dismissed as ‘just babytalk’. It is interesting to note, however,
that these signals are drawn from common and ordinary behaviors that express positive interest or
affinity in adults (e.g., looking at, mutual gaze, smile, open mouth, raised eyebrows, head bob, head
nods, touches, pats, soft undulant vocal contours) and that they have been ‘ritualized’—that is, they
have been formalized, repeated, exaggerated, and elaborated. Ritualized features attract attention,
sustain interest, and create and mold emotion. As evolved in the mother-infant engagement, they
can be considered ‘proto-musical’ and, I hypothesize, the phylogenetic origin of human
musicality. Because infants are born prepared to engage in these encounters, indeed to prefer
these signals to any others, one could claim that humans are innately prepared to engage in and
respond to music.

Resumen
Las mamás al interactuar con sus bebés producen señales vocales, visuales y kinésicas
inusuales que son habitualmente mal entendidas como ‘sólo habla dirigida al bebé (baby talk)’. Es
interesante notar, sin embargo, que estas señales emergen de conductas comunes y ordinarias
que expresan interés o afinidad en los adultos (tales como dirigir la mirada, la mirada mutua,
sonreir, abrir la boca, elevar las cejas, balancear la cabeza, asentir con la cabeza, tocar, dar
palmadas, emitir contornos (vocales) suaves y ondulantes) y que han sido ‘ritualizados’ -esto es,
que han sido formalizados, repetidos, exagerados, y elaborados. Los rasgos ritualizados atraen la
atención, mantienen el interés y crean y forman la emoción. Evolucionados en el encuentro madre-
bebé, ellos pueden ser considerados ‘proto-musicales’ y, asumo, ser el origen filogenético de la
musicalidad humana. Dado que los bebés nacen preparados para la participación en estos
encuentros, en verdad para preferir estas señales a otras, uno podría sostener que los humanos
están innatamente preparados para participar en y responder a la música.

Introduction
My title asks a question: ‘Are humans innately musical?’ The rest of my talk will explain why I
think the answer is ‘Yes’.
More than thirty years ago, before there were fields called cognitive science of music or
evolutionary psychology, I wondered why every human culture had music. I was acquainted with the
field of ethology, which studied the behavior of animals in their natural environments, and that seemed
a good place to start my investigation.1 Could one think of music as a species-specific behavior, like
language, cooperation, or pair-bonding—something that humans are ‘programmed’ to do? Ethologists
claimed that, like anatomy and physiology, behaviors too evolved in order to contribute to an animal’s
survival and reproductive success. They had ‘selective value’ (the term now generally replaced by
‘adaptive’).
There are at least five good reasons for thinking that music might be an adaptive behavior:
(1) it occurs universally, (2) it is ‘costly’ in terms of time, energy, and material resources that are
devoted to it, (3) it is appealing to people, giving them pleasure, (4) children readily engage in musical
behavior, with little or no teaching, (5) everywhere it is culturally important.
My hypothesis about music begins with a universal human behavior that everyone in this
room has witnessed and probably practiced. It is so commonplace that even Darwin, who was the
2
father of 10 children, did not remark on it. Yet recent studies show that the behavior of mother-infant
1
The fields of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and behavioral ecology have now pretty much
incorporated ethological principles, enriched with a more sophisticated understanding of how evolution works and
with the findings of neuroscience.
2
Darwin did suggest, however, that human social affections are probably an extension of parental or filial
sentiments.
Alejandro Pereira Ghiena, Paz Jacquier, Mónica Valles y Mauricio Martínez (Editores) Musicalidad Humana:
Debates actuales en evolución, desarrollo y cognición e implicancias socio-culturales. Actas del X Encuentro de
Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música, pp. 1-9.
© 2011 - Sociedad Argentina para las Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música (SACCoM) - ISBN 978-987-27082-0-7
 DISSANAYAKE
interaction (sometimes called ‘baby talk’) is quite complex, 3 revealing surprising cognitive aptitudes in
neonates and infants. And I think that elements of the interaction provide the evolutionary source of
musical behavior (making, participating in, and responding to music), as well as other arts. The
hypothesis claims that building on these ‘protomusical’ elements and producing musical behavior is an
evolutionary adaptation or—at the least—a biological predisposition. 4 Although the origin of musical
behavior is hidden in the remote past, my hypothesis synthesizes six ‘strands’ of scientifically-based
knowledge and plausible speculation based on this knowledge; it provides a foundation for claiming
that a predisposition for musical behavior is innate and can be accessed in everyone.

First strand: the ‘obstetric dilemma’

I begin with two momentous anatomical adaptations in hominins of the Early Pleistocene
(specifically, H. erectus or H. ergaster) in the millennia after 1.8 mya. The first is bipedality. The
second is increasing brain size. (Mithen 2005). 5
Among the many adaptations necessary for upright posture (including restructuring the rib
cage and the bones of the inner ear, reshaping the spine, relocating the opening of the spinal cord,
altering the lower limbs and feet, reconfiguring surfaces of the joints, and resculpting the body
musculature) was a reshaped pelvis. The mismatch between the narrowed birth canal required by
upright posture and an infant’s large head became an acute problem at childbirth that was addressed
by means of several anatomical adaptations.
1. A reduced gestation period. Infants were born increasingly prematurely and thus were
increasingly helpless at birth. It has been estimated that if a human baby were as physically
mature at birth as an infant chimpanzee, gestation would be 21 months and the baby would
weigh 25 pounds (Falk 2009, Gould 1977, Leakey 1994, Portmann 1941).
2. Much brain growth takes place outside the womb. Taking body size into account, a
neonate’s brain (350cc) is relatively the same as an infant chimpanzee (150cc). However,
between birth and age 4, the human baby’s brain size triples (the chimp’s doubles) and by
adulthood human brains are four times the size at birth (1400cc).
3. The infant skull is compressible at birth.
4. The female pelvis can separate slightly at birth, making the pelvic ring slightly larger.

Second strand: mother-infant interaction is an adaptive

behavior
Although archaeologists and evolutionary scientists are aware of the ‘obstetric dilemma’ and
its anatomical concomitants, its behavioral consequences have been emphasized by only two other
researchers besides myself (Falk 2009, Morgan 1995). I propose that mother-infant interaction, as
described below, is a behavioral adaptation that evolved in Early Pleistocene hominins in response to
the evolutionary problem of ensuring the survival of very immature babies (Dissanayake 1999).
Features of this interaction can be considered proto-musical and hence the origin of musical behavior
in humans.
This idea contrasts with the most popular hypothesis for the origin and evolution of music
(and other arts), which traces it to competitive male display (e.g., Miller 2000a, 2000b). The sexual
selection hypothesis extrapolates from song-like behaviors in male birds and cetaceans as well as
other art-like visual displays of male bower birds, peacocks, and so forth that attract females for
copulation. My own view does not discount the existence of male display but it emphasizes an equally
important though overlooked component of reproductive success—the successful birth and
subsequent survival of a child.
Despite their physical helplessness, newborn infants are socially precocious. They are alert
at birth and respond to human voices and faces more than to any other sound or sight, allowing them
to interact with the adults around them from the moment they are born.

3
Fathers are of course important too and what I will say later about interaction applies to males as well as
females.
4
The hypothesis developed here applies also to other ‘arts of time’ (e.g., dance and other performance), which
are included here in ‘musical behavior’. With appropriate changes, I have shown in other writings that the
hypothesis also applies to the visual arts.
5
Brain size increased between Australopithecus (508cc) to erectus (973cc) between 4 and 2my and another
dramatic increase between erectus, habilis, ergaster and modern humans (1400cc) from around 600ky (Mithen
2005). See also Falk (2004, 499), Flinn and Ward (2005, 31).

2
 HOMO MUSICUS: ARE HUMANS PREDISPOSED TO BE MUSICAL?
People everywhere behave to infants differently from the way they do to adults or even older
children. Vocally, we speak slowly in a high-pitched, undulant, soft voice (in some societies, with
tongue clicks or hisses). Visually, we make funny faces (wide eyes, raised eyebrows, open mouth,
wide sustained smiles), distinct head movements (bob backward, nod), and use mutual gaze, even
with a newborn. Kinesically (i.e., using body movements) we touch, pat, stroke, hold the hand,
embrace, groom, sway from side to side or forward and back, hug, and kiss.
Babies respond with delight to these sounds, sights, and movements. At first they like
regularity and predictability—soothing gentle voices and movements. However, at around four months
they begin to appreciate fun, silliness and divergence from their expectations. Without conscious
intent, maternal facial expressions, utterances, and movements become more exaggerated in space
and time, more varied and modulated. The mother may tease, create anticipation, and manipulate the
baby’s expectations (as in games of Peek-A-Boo or This Little Piggy). For their part, infants respond
with larger smiles, more active movements, and sounds of delight. In these more developed
interactions, there is more interaction, more matching (of sounds, expressions, and movements) and
more turn-taking.

Third strand: mothers’ visual, vocal, and kinesic signals to

infants are modifications of affinitive communications of adults
Interestingly, no one has pointed out that infant-directed behaviors are derived from
expressive visual signals that adults use in interested, friendly, receptive, happy interactions with each
other (Grant 1968, 1972, Schelde and Hertz, 1994): Look at, Mutual Gaze, Raise Eyebrows (flash),
Smile, Open Mouth, Bob, and Nod. The difference is that with infants we simplify or regularize, repeat,
exaggerate and elaborate these behaviors that when used spontaneously with other adults indicate
friendship or positive affinitive readiness or intent.
Vocally, it has been shown that when adults indicate deference, non-dominance, and the
emotion of ‘happiness,’ their vocalizations have Higher Pitch and are Soft, Slow, Undulant, and
Breathy (Frick 1985, Puts et al. 2006, Scherer and Oshinsky 1977). Kinesic signals of affinity include
Touching, Stroking, Patting, Holding the hand, Embracing, Grooming, Hugging, and Kissing. As well
as being common adult human gestures of sympathy and affection, these also occur in affinitive social
contexts with wild and captive primates and probably early Homo (deWaal 1989, King 2004, Nicolson
1977, Silk 1998).
By making such friendly signals to her infant—and especially by repeating and exaggerating
them—a mother reinforces neural pathways and releases brain chemicals that promote and
strengthen feelings of affinity in herself (see Ekman 1992, McIntosh 1996, Zajonc 1985, Zajonc and
Ingelhard 1989 for descriptions of biofeedback). By eliciting and responding positively to her signals,
infants ensure that they will attract her care. The result: because the baby is perceived as lovable and
interactive (even though it is also helpless and demanding), a mother is persuaded to provide
nurturance for months and years. Ultimately, the baby is more likely to survive and the mother to
ensure her reproductive success.
It is important to recognize that babies are not taught to respond to these antics. If anything,
they ‘teach’ adults to perform for them. Infants come into the world wanting this kind of interaction and
reward us with adorable kicks, wriggles, smiles, and coos when we provide it. They don’t wriggle and
smile if presented with adult talk. Their ready responsiveness strongly suggests that it is inborn.
Interestingly, psychologists find that the interaction is temporally coordinated (Malloch and
Trevarthen 2009). Babies have an exquisite sensitivity to simple rhythmic structure in time. At 8
weeks, they can estimate and anticipate temporal sequences, based on an ability to remember and
categorize temporal patterns (Jaffe et al. 2001). Temporal sensitivity allows babies to interact
intimately with those who care for them. The partners respond to each other in real time, adjusting
their responses to each other’s visual, vocal, and gestural signals within fractions of seconds (Beebe,
1982, Stern 1971). Dual video experiments have shown the existence and emotional importance of
close temporal coordination between mother and infant as early as 8 weeks of age. They are not in
synchrony, but each partner has an expectation of ‘social contingency’ (Murray and Trevarthen 1985,
Nadel et al. 1999). This close behavioral coordination is not an accident and must have evolved to
assist bonding.6

6
Elsewhere I have suggested that this behavioral-neurological attunement between adult and infant is the
evolutionary basis for later adult interactions that involve coordination and turn-taking, whether these be in
conversation, lovemaking, or performing with others in music, dance, and other ‘arts that take place in time’
(Dissanayake 2008, 183-186).
Actas del X Encuentro de Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música 3
 DISSANAYAKE
Developmental psychologists have described benefits of this interaction to babies.7
1. Bonding – By establishing physiological attunement, the pair join emotionally and establish
mutual trust (Carter 1998, Carter and Altemus 1999. Panksepp et al. 1999, 223, 225).
2. Emotion recognition and regulation, emotional practice – Infants learn to identify and
discriminate different emotions as they are expressed vocally and visually; the baby gains
acquaintance with its own shifting levels of excitation and positive or negative feelings,
developing some degree of self-regulation of these levels and feelings (Hofer 1987, Beebe
and Lachman 1994, Spangler et al. 1994). It also learns that through its own signals it can to
some degree regulate the other person’s stimulation.
3. Cognitive practice – By anticipating, the baby ‘hypothesizes’ what will come next and learns
how to evaluate discrepancies from the expected; it tests and perfects its expectations or
predictions (Hundeide 1991).
4. Social practice – Baby talk first acquaints the infant with back-and-forth, give-and-take
socializing, the rudiments of its prospective life as a social being, where one’s behavior calls
forth reciprocal responses in another. The baby learns that the other person presupposes,
requires, and responds in turn to the infant’s responses.
5. Language learning – Baby talk prepares the way for being able to produce and understand
the prototypical and meaningful sounds of the language one will speak (Fernald 1992,
Kuhl,1993, Locke 1993).
6. Learning of culture – Through mother-infant interaction, different cultures first instill their own
norms of proper behavior—whether demonstrative, restrained, and so forth. Baby and
mother encounter each other’s personal temperament also, and learn to adjust to each other.
In addition to these benefits, which are well known to psychologists, I claim that the
interaction has a seventh benefit:
7. Predisposing musical behavior (to be described later).

Fourth strand: mother-infant interaction resembles ‘ritualized’

behaviors
In order to make the case that mother-infant interaction is the source of proto-musical
predispositions, it is necessary to briefly introduce an evolutionary process (first described by
ethologists, particularly for some birds) of what is called ‘ritualization’ of behavior (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1970,
Huxley 1913, Smith 1977, Tinbergen 1952).
In ritualization, ordinary behavior from an instrumental context (e. g., pecking the ground for
food, gathering nest material, self-grooming, preparing for flight) is altered so that it communicates
something else in a new context (‘I’m angry,’ ‘I’m friendly,’ ‘I want to mate’). In mother-infant
interaction, behaviors used by adults in the instrumental contexts of showing friendliness, submission,
or non-aggression in everyday social interactions are altered (ritualized) so that they mean something
else in the new context of bonding (‘You can trust me,’ ‘I adore you,’ ‘This is what it is to be social’).
If we look somewhat abstractly at what mothers do to their faces, head and body
movements, and their vocalizations, we can detect the same ‘operations’ or alterations that ethologists
describe for changing an ordinary signal into a ritualized one:
1. Simplification or formalization: Facial expressions are sustained; texts of babytalk reveal a
stanza-like composition; movements are stereotyped.
2. Repetition: Sounds, words, pats, strokes, and nods are repeated, often metrically or
rhythmically.
3. Exaggeration: Vocalizations may be dramatically loud or soft, with strong emphasis on
certain words; there are exaggerated vocal contours, even striking glissandi; facial
expressions often show widened eyes, raised eyebrows, an open mouth, a wide smile.
4. Elaboration: Facial expressions, vocal sounds, and head and body movements may be
dynamically varied (e.g., large and small, fast and slow, long and short, high and low).
5. Manipulation of expectation: Games such as Patty Cake and Peek-a-Boo allow mothers to
play with the infant’s innate temporal sensitivity.

7
An unfortunate ‘unintended experiment’ that demonstrates the biological and cultural importance of mother-
infant interaction is that of socially-neglected infants in some Eastern European orphanages that became known
after the fall of the Soviet Empire.

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 HOMO MUSICUS: ARE HUMANS PREDISPOSED TO BE MUSICAL?
Fifth strand: the ‘operations’ used in mother-infant interaction
and ritualized behaviors are ‘(proto)’-musical
The operations just listed also describe what musicians (composers, improvisers, or
performers) do to tones, chords, rhythms, motifs, timbres and other musical elements in order to
attract attention, sustain interest, and evoke emotion—the same effects that mothers accomplish with
infants and that animals accomplish with ritualized behaviors. The fact that babies are receptive to
exactly these operations, in a multi-modal form, suggests that they are born with proto-musical
capacities or sensitivities upon which later music can be built. They are born ready to become musical.
Mother-infant interaction is the seed-bed from which cultures could later go on to create music (and
other arts).
One can find other resemblances between mother-infant interaction and music. Notably,
both take place in time and evoke emotion. Both have features of melody, rhythm, and dynamic
change. Both have a similar temporal structure (clearly evident in written transcripts of babytalk and in
notated musical scores): they are composed of lines or phrases constructed into larger ‘framed’
episodes; episodes have a consistent expressive mood with an overall thematic and formal
construction; themes may vary within or between episodes; expectations are set up and eventually
satisfied. Importantly, physical movement is intrinsic to both. They both give pleasure and are
‘emotional’. Reactions to both may be described as ‘wordless’ or ‘inexpressible’.8 Both provide what
can be called attunement, bonding, and even feelings of self-transcendence. Both are means of social
regulation and enculturation.
Despite these similarities, we can ask how one proceeds from the proto-music of mother-
infant interaction as it evolved over more than a million years to actual musical behavior that we would
recognize. To begin with, of course, we should not think of Western classical music as the first music.
It is part of a quite recent tradition that is dependent on written scores. In its origins we must think of
music as it might have existed in the Pleistocene, when people lived in small interdependent social
groups in a subsistence way of life as foragers or hunter-gatherers.
In similar societies of the recent past, we find that music has a number of universal (or near-
universal) features. It is performative (often improvisatory), communal (everyone participates), and
‘multi-modal’—that is, it typically includes dance or other movement, even masks and costume, as well
as sound: it is simultaneously auditory, visual, and kinesic. In such societies, music is considered to be
culturally essential and it is frequently ‘religious’ by nature and intent, occurring prominently in
ceremony/ritual.9

Sixth strand: the invention of ceremonial ritual and the arts

Although ‘ritual’ is regarded as an important human universal, it is not always
appreciated that rituals themselves are ‘collections of arts’. That is, if one removes the arts, there
would be no ceremony. 10 Although we don’t know when and why humans invented music and the
other arts, by looking at small-scale societies of the recent past it would seem that religion and the arts
evolved together (Dissanayake (2011). 11 The earliest indications of arts in our species are cupules
(patterned, repeated hemispherical indentations hammered into horizontal and vertical rock surfaces),
perforated pendants, and ostrich eggshell disc beads from at least 250-200kya, and shaped pieces of
ochre for coloring bodies and objects from at least 120ky (Bednarik 2003). Music and dance may well
have preceded material artifacts: cupule sites may mark a place and occasion for music, dance, and
performance. 12
But what could be the evolutionary purpose of ceremonies (‘collections of arts’)?
There is not space here to discuss the evolution of ceremonial behavior except to say that I
suggest that it arose to address the existential problems of hunter-gatherer life. At least, this is the
case in small-scale societies of the recent past, in which arts-suffused rites are performed at

8
Infants, of course, do not understand words or have speech.
9
There are speculations about when ritual began. I agree with Merlin Donald (1991. 2006), who suggests that
pre-verbal ‘mimetic ‘culture (using gesture, pantomime, dance, visual analogy, and vocalizations) could have
developed in H. erectus, i.e., after 1.8mya.
10
Here I use the terms ‘ritual,’ ‘ceremony’ and ‘ceremonial ritual’ interchangeably. The term ‘ritual,’ alone, can
suggest something perfunctory, whereas ‘ceremony’ sounds more serious and elaborate.
11
I consider ‘religion’ to be a term that—whatever else it entails—refers to beliefs and practices that explain the
world and help people to get what they want and need. For Jean Clottes (2006, 9), religion denotes belief in
supernatural entities and related practices believed to afford contact with those entities.
12
The discussion in this section is about ‘arts’. which I believe arose together as aspects of the same activity—
music/movement with visual enhancement, based on the proto-musical (or, broadly,’ proto-aesthetic’) operations
originally used in ancestral mother-infant interactions as described in sections 3, 4, and 5.
Actas del X Encuentro de Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música 5
 DISSANAYAKE
transitional times of uncertainty or anxiety about success in such important biological matters as
subsistence, safety, prosperity, health, and traversing important life changes such as puberty,
marriage, and death. Ceremonies are performed in order to influence important outcomes: they are
intended to have an effect.
I propose that arts behavior in ceremonies developed as a way of demonstrating individual
and group care and concern about these biologically-important outcomes and that its proximate
functions were (a) to have ‘something to do’ that by its extravagance would persuade spirits and other
supernatural powers to affect individual and/or group interests in uncertain circumstances. At the
same time, (b) arts behavior enticed people to engage in and be emotionally moved by and convinced
of the truth of the ceremony.
Religion appeals not only to the intellect in the form of beliefs or precepts but to senses and
emotions. Rituals work because their arts provide the emotional oomph that make religious beliefs
memorable and meaningful (Dissanayake 1992, Schiefenhövel 2009). The earliest culturally-created
arts behaviors can be considered as behavioral/emotional mechanisms of religious belief.
I propose two ultimate functions of arts/music-suffused rituals. First, by providing something
to do with others, in uncertain circumstances, they alleviate the deleterious effects of the stress
response. The release of stress hormones like cortisol negatively affect growth, tissue repair, energy
release, immune system activity, mental activity, digestive function, metabolism, and even
reproductive physiology and behavior (Sapolsky 1992). In this sense, ceremonial/arts behavior—
compared to doing nothing—is adaptive (Kaptchuk, Kerr, and Zanger 2009). Music and movement, in
particular, are notably effective in regulating disturbing emotions like fear or anxiety and thereby
contributing to the well-being of participants.13
A second ultimate function of participation in ceremonies through their arts is the instilling of
collective emotions such as trust and belongingness. Not only are brain chemicals like cortisol
suppressed by participating with others in formalized and rhythmically repeated activities, oxytocin and
other endorphinic substances are secreted, creating pleasurable feelings of unity with others,
strengthening their commitment to each other. 14
I suggest that the proto-musical operations on maternal vocalizations, facial expressions,
and body movements, described in Sections 4 and 5, were co-opted (exapted) in the context of
stressful existential uncertainty (the adaptive problem). As design features that were already used to
coordinate emotional states and unify the mother-infant pair, these evolved behavioral predispositions
became culturally-transformed into what we call now music/dance/performance, continuing to attract
the attention of individual participants, sustain their interest, arouse and shape their emotions, and
physically coordinate as well as psychologically and emotionally unify them as a group.15

Summary and conclusion

When ethologists investigate a behavior, they typically consider four aspects, evolutionary
origin, origin and development in the individual, proximate causes and mechanisms (why individuals
do it), and ultimate cause (how the behavior aids the individual’s survival and reproductive success). 16
In the case of musical predisposition, ‘strands’ 1-5 of the argument summarize the answers to these
questions.
1. The ‘obstetric dilemma’ in the Lower Pleistocene (the evolutionary problem).
2. Mother-infant interaction is an adaptive behavior (the adaptive solution: bonding).
3. Mothers’ visual, vocal, and kinesic signals are modifications of affinitive communications of
adults and, as such, became mechanisms that release prosocial hormones in the brains of

13
Humans seek out others for comfort when they are fearful (Taylor, 1992). Mead (1976/1930) and Malinowski
(1922) each describe members of small-scale societies huddling together during terrifying storms, chanting
charms to abate the wind. Additionally, the lament is a widespread musical/poetic form performed by or for
bereaved persons that apparently helps persons cope with their loss (Dissanayake, unpub.).
14
Affinitive behaviors and emotions, such as those created and reinforced in arts-suffused ceremonial
participation, activate the orbitofrontal cortex and other reward centers of the brain (Carter et al. 1999 and others
cited in Brown and Dissanayake 2009, 53). Although neuroscientists have known for many years that oxytocin
and opioids are released at parturition and during maternal behavior in all mammals, they have only recently
discovered that moving to and even listening to music releases these same chemicals as do dancing and other
movement activities in which people participate with one or more others. (Freeman 2000).
15
Early Pleistocene mother-infant interaction as described here could also have contributed to other hominin
adaptations during human evolution: (a) an increase in multimodal association cortex; (b) development of vocal
anatomy for language (Falk 2009); and (c) provision of behavioral and emotional proclivities for adult male-female
bonding, thereby keeping males close to mother and offspring.
16
These are sometimes called ‘Tinbergen’s Four Whys’ (see Tinbergen 1963).

6
 HOMO MUSICUS: ARE HUMANS PREDISPOSED TO BE MUSICAL?
mothers who make such signals (proximate neural mechanisms, or ‘design elements’ that
reinforce affinity and bonding).
4. Mother-infant interaction resembles ritualized behaviors insofar as it uses formalization,
repetition, exaggeration, elaboration, and manipulation of expectation as the modifications—
operations—that attract attention, sustain interest, and arouse and shape the emotion of
infants, who are born susceptible to these (‘design elements’ and proximate behavioral
mechanisms that promote bonding, hence maternal care).
5. The ‘operations’ used in mother-infant interaction and ritualized behaviors are ‘(proto)’-
musical, insofar as musical behavior as we know it also includes these operations
(evolutionary origin of musical behavior).

In the case of Strand 6, ‘The invention of ceremonial ritual and the arts’, the evolved
protomusical predispositions described in strands 2 through 5, when exapted for use by individual
cultures in ceremonial rituals (‘collections of arts’), also unify individual participants and, additionally,
counteract the effects of stress, as described in the previous section (ultimate adaptive advantage that
solve two adaptive problems—relieving individual sress (in an animal that can remember and plan)
and promoting group concord (among individuals with different self-interests).

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