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Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction

Music and spoken language share certain characteristics: both consist of sequences of acoustic elements that are combinatorically combined, and these elements partition the same continuous acoustic dimensions (frequency, formant space and duration). However, the resulting categories differ sharply:...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Haiduk, Felix, Fitch, W. Tecumseh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9075586/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529579
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.786899
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author Haiduk, Felix
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
author_facet Haiduk, Felix
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
author_sort Haiduk, Felix
collection PubMed
description Music and spoken language share certain characteristics: both consist of sequences of acoustic elements that are combinatorically combined, and these elements partition the same continuous acoustic dimensions (frequency, formant space and duration). However, the resulting categories differ sharply: scale tones and note durations of small integer ratios appear in music, while speech uses phonemes, lexical tone, and non-isochronous durations. Why did music and language diverge into the two systems we have today, differing in these specific features? We propose a framework based on information theory and a reverse-engineering perspective, suggesting that design features of music and language are a response to their differential deployment along three different continuous dimensions. These include the familiar propositional-aesthetic (‘goal’) and repetitive-novel (‘novelty’) dimensions, and a dialogic-choric (‘interactivity’) dimension that is our focus here. Specifically, we hypothesize that music exhibits specializations enhancing coherent production by several individuals concurrently—the ‘choric’ context. In contrast, language is specialized for exchange in tightly coordinated turn-taking—‘dialogic’ contexts. We examine the evidence for our framework, both from humans and non-human animals, and conclude that many proposed design features of music and language follow naturally from their use in distinct dialogic and choric communicative contexts. Furthermore, the hybrid nature of intermediate systems like poetry, chant, or solo lament follows from their deployment in the less typical interactive context.
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spelling pubmed-90755862022-05-07 Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction Haiduk, Felix Fitch, W. Tecumseh Front Psychol Psychology Music and spoken language share certain characteristics: both consist of sequences of acoustic elements that are combinatorically combined, and these elements partition the same continuous acoustic dimensions (frequency, formant space and duration). However, the resulting categories differ sharply: scale tones and note durations of small integer ratios appear in music, while speech uses phonemes, lexical tone, and non-isochronous durations. Why did music and language diverge into the two systems we have today, differing in these specific features? We propose a framework based on information theory and a reverse-engineering perspective, suggesting that design features of music and language are a response to their differential deployment along three different continuous dimensions. These include the familiar propositional-aesthetic (‘goal’) and repetitive-novel (‘novelty’) dimensions, and a dialogic-choric (‘interactivity’) dimension that is our focus here. Specifically, we hypothesize that music exhibits specializations enhancing coherent production by several individuals concurrently—the ‘choric’ context. In contrast, language is specialized for exchange in tightly coordinated turn-taking—‘dialogic’ contexts. We examine the evidence for our framework, both from humans and non-human animals, and conclude that many proposed design features of music and language follow naturally from their use in distinct dialogic and choric communicative contexts. Furthermore, the hybrid nature of intermediate systems like poetry, chant, or solo lament follows from their deployment in the less typical interactive context. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9075586/ /pubmed/35529579 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.786899 Text en Copyright © 2022 Haiduk and Fitch. 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
Haiduk, Felix
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title_full Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title_fullStr Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title_full_unstemmed Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title_short Understanding Design Features of Music and Language: The Choric/Dialogic Distinction
title_sort understanding design features of music and language: the choric/dialogic distinction
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9075586/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529579
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.786899
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