Tuesday, May 27 2008: Hmmmmm
Back inside the brain
Here we should return to look inside the brain, as it is in the firing of neurons and the swilling of chemicals that our enjoyment of music lies. As described in chapter 5, Isabelle Peretz used the case histories of people such as NS, the man who lost his ability to recognize words, but could recognize melodies, HJ, the man for whom music sounded 'like awful noise', and Monica, who suffered from congenital amusia, to argue that the music and language systems within the brain are constituted by a series of discrete modules. Her argument was represented in Figure 5 (p. 63) and is entirely compatible with the evolutionary history that I have proposed within this book.
In general, an evolutionary approach to mind leads to an expectation that the mind will have a modular structure. In accordance with the specific evolutionary history I have proposed, we should expect pitch and temporal organization to have the degree of independence that Peretz suggests, because the latter appears to have evolved at a later date, being associated with the neurological and physiological changes that surrounded bipedalism. Similarly, we should not be surprised that Peretz found that the root of congenital amusia lies in the inability to detect variations in pitch, because from an evolutionary perspective that appears to be the most ancient element of the music system within the brain.
The fact that the music and language systems in the brain share some modules is also to be expected given the evolutionary history I have proposed, because we now know that both originate from a single system. Conversely, the fact that they also have their own independent modules is a reflection of up to two hundred thousand years of independent evolution. The modules relating to pitch organization would once have been central to 'Hmmmmm'* but are now recruited only for music (with a possible exception in those who speak tonal languages); while other 'Hmmmmm' modules might now be recruited for the language system alone - perhaps, for example, those relating to grammar. This evolutionary history explains why brain injuries can affect either music alone (chapter 4), language alone (chapter 3), or both systems if some of the shared modules are damaged.
It is, of course, profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct evolutionary history from present-day mental structures, for the neural networks within any one person's brain are as much a product of developmental as evolutionary history (chapter 6). Indeed, some would argue that the type of environment within which the brain develops is the principal determinant of its neural circuitry. Babies are born into and develop within cultures that have language as the dominant form of aural communication, and this influences the neural networks that are formed within their brains. Nevertheless, the genes we inherit from our parents derive from our evolutionary history and must channel that development; it is the extent of this channeling that remains highly debated among psychologists. My own view is one that gives equal weight to evolution and culture as regards the manner in which neural networks develop. All I expect is a broad compatibility between evolutionary history and brain structure - and this is indeed what appears to be present.
Remnants of 'Hmmmmm' within music and language
Music evidently maintains many features of 'Hmmmmm', some quite evident, such as its emotional impact and holistic nature, others requiring a moment's reflection. It is now apparent, for instance, why even when listening to music made by instruments rather than the human voice, we treat music as a virtual person and attribute to it an emotional state and sometimes a personality and intention. It is also now clear why so much of music is structured as if a conversation is taking place within the music itself, and why we often intuitively feel that a piece of music should have a meaning attached to it, even though we cannot grasp what that might be.
Remnants and reflections of 'Hmmmmm' can also be found in language. Perhaps the most evident is the acquisition of language by infants.
Ever since the late nineteenth century, scientists have debated whether there is a correspondence between the stages through which we passed during human evolution and the stages through which a foetus or infant passes during development. The strongest form of this argument is referred to as recapitulation, and was proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 in the form: 'ontogeny is the short and rapid recapitulation of the phylogeny'. Whether or not that theory has any value, my concern is with a far more general argument concerning th development of language. It is, of course, whether the earliest stages of infant-directed speech (IDS, as described in chapter 6) are likely to be similar to the type of 'Hmmmmm' used by Early Humans (H. habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis) to their infants, since in both cases the infants lack a language capability but need support for their emotional development.
If there is a similarity - and I strongly suspect there is - then when we hear mothers, fathers, siblings and others 'talking' to babies, are we perhaps hearing the closest thing to 'Hmmmmm' that we can find in the world today?
Steven Mithen (2006), The Singing Neanderthals, pp 274-275.
*Hmmmmm = Holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, mimetic, musical communicative proto-language hypothesized by Mithen to have evolved in the hominid line and to achieved its highest expression in Neanderthal utterances. Hmmmmm split apart into modern language and modern musicality with Homo sapiens.
Here we should return to look inside the brain, as it is in the firing of neurons and the swilling of chemicals that our enjoyment of music lies. As described in chapter 5, Isabelle Peretz used the case histories of people such as NS, the man who lost his ability to recognize words, but could recognize melodies, HJ, the man for whom music sounded 'like awful noise', and Monica, who suffered from congenital amusia, to argue that the music and language systems within the brain are constituted by a series of discrete modules. Her argument was represented in Figure 5 (p. 63) and is entirely compatible with the evolutionary history that I have proposed within this book.
In general, an evolutionary approach to mind leads to an expectation that the mind will have a modular structure. In accordance with the specific evolutionary history I have proposed, we should expect pitch and temporal organization to have the degree of independence that Peretz suggests, because the latter appears to have evolved at a later date, being associated with the neurological and physiological changes that surrounded bipedalism. Similarly, we should not be surprised that Peretz found that the root of congenital amusia lies in the inability to detect variations in pitch, because from an evolutionary perspective that appears to be the most ancient element of the music system within the brain.
The fact that the music and language systems in the brain share some modules is also to be expected given the evolutionary history I have proposed, because we now know that both originate from a single system. Conversely, the fact that they also have their own independent modules is a reflection of up to two hundred thousand years of independent evolution. The modules relating to pitch organization would once have been central to 'Hmmmmm'* but are now recruited only for music (with a possible exception in those who speak tonal languages); while other 'Hmmmmm' modules might now be recruited for the language system alone - perhaps, for example, those relating to grammar. This evolutionary history explains why brain injuries can affect either music alone (chapter 4), language alone (chapter 3), or both systems if some of the shared modules are damaged.
It is, of course, profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct evolutionary history from present-day mental structures, for the neural networks within any one person's brain are as much a product of developmental as evolutionary history (chapter 6). Indeed, some would argue that the type of environment within which the brain develops is the principal determinant of its neural circuitry. Babies are born into and develop within cultures that have language as the dominant form of aural communication, and this influences the neural networks that are formed within their brains. Nevertheless, the genes we inherit from our parents derive from our evolutionary history and must channel that development; it is the extent of this channeling that remains highly debated among psychologists. My own view is one that gives equal weight to evolution and culture as regards the manner in which neural networks develop. All I expect is a broad compatibility between evolutionary history and brain structure - and this is indeed what appears to be present.
Remnants of 'Hmmmmm' within music and language
Music evidently maintains many features of 'Hmmmmm', some quite evident, such as its emotional impact and holistic nature, others requiring a moment's reflection. It is now apparent, for instance, why even when listening to music made by instruments rather than the human voice, we treat music as a virtual person and attribute to it an emotional state and sometimes a personality and intention. It is also now clear why so much of music is structured as if a conversation is taking place within the music itself, and why we often intuitively feel that a piece of music should have a meaning attached to it, even though we cannot grasp what that might be.
Remnants and reflections of 'Hmmmmm' can also be found in language. Perhaps the most evident is the acquisition of language by infants.
Ever since the late nineteenth century, scientists have debated whether there is a correspondence between the stages through which we passed during human evolution and the stages through which a foetus or infant passes during development. The strongest form of this argument is referred to as recapitulation, and was proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 in the form: 'ontogeny is the short and rapid recapitulation of the phylogeny'. Whether or not that theory has any value, my concern is with a far more general argument concerning th development of language. It is, of course, whether the earliest stages of infant-directed speech (IDS, as described in chapter 6) are likely to be similar to the type of 'Hmmmmm' used by Early Humans (H. habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis) to their infants, since in both cases the infants lack a language capability but need support for their emotional development.
If there is a similarity - and I strongly suspect there is - then when we hear mothers, fathers, siblings and others 'talking' to babies, are we perhaps hearing the closest thing to 'Hmmmmm' that we can find in the world today?
Steven Mithen (2006), The Singing Neanderthals, pp 274-275.
*Hmmmmm = Holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, mimetic, musical communicative proto-language hypothesized by Mithen to have evolved in the hominid line and to achieved its highest expression in Neanderthal utterances. Hmmmmm split apart into modern language and modern musicality with Homo sapiens.
