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The origins and function of musical performance

Music is widely recognised as a human universal, yet there is no agreed explanation for its function, or why and when it evolved. I summarise experimental evidence that the primary function of musicking lies in social bonding, both at the dyadic and community levels, via the effect that performing a...

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Autor principal: Dunbar, Robin I. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10667447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022957
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1257390
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author Dunbar, Robin I. M.
author_facet Dunbar, Robin I. M.
author_sort Dunbar, Robin I. M.
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description Music is widely recognised as a human universal, yet there is no agreed explanation for its function, or why and when it evolved. I summarise experimental evidence that the primary function of musicking lies in social bonding, both at the dyadic and community levels, via the effect that performing any form of music has on the brain’s endorphin system (the principal neurohormonal basis for social bonding in primates). The many other functions associated with music-making (mate choice, pleasure, coalition signalling, etc) are all better understood as derivative of this, either as secondary selection pressures or as windows of evolutionary opportunity (exaptations). If music’s function is primarily as an adjunct of the social bonding mechanism (a feature it shares with laughter, feasting, storytelling and the rituals of religion), then reverse engineering the problem suggests that the capacity for music-making most likely evolved with the appearance of archaic humans. This agrees well with anatomical evidence for the capacity to sing.
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spelling pubmed-106674472023-11-10 The origins and function of musical performance Dunbar, Robin I. M. Front Psychol Psychology Music is widely recognised as a human universal, yet there is no agreed explanation for its function, or why and when it evolved. I summarise experimental evidence that the primary function of musicking lies in social bonding, both at the dyadic and community levels, via the effect that performing any form of music has on the brain’s endorphin system (the principal neurohormonal basis for social bonding in primates). The many other functions associated with music-making (mate choice, pleasure, coalition signalling, etc) are all better understood as derivative of this, either as secondary selection pressures or as windows of evolutionary opportunity (exaptations). If music’s function is primarily as an adjunct of the social bonding mechanism (a feature it shares with laughter, feasting, storytelling and the rituals of religion), then reverse engineering the problem suggests that the capacity for music-making most likely evolved with the appearance of archaic humans. This agrees well with anatomical evidence for the capacity to sing. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10667447/ /pubmed/38022957 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1257390 Text en Copyright © 2023 Dunbar. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Dunbar, Robin I. M.
The origins and function of musical performance
title The origins and function of musical performance
title_full The origins and function of musical performance
title_fullStr The origins and function of musical performance
title_full_unstemmed The origins and function of musical performance
title_short The origins and function of musical performance
title_sort origins and function of musical performance
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10667447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022957
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1257390
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