Sharon Dutton
On September 15, 2008, Dr. Daniel Levitin spoke to a full house at Walter Hall in the Edward Johnson Building, which houses the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. With him were eight singers, who performed selections that represented six ways that humans use music. Dr. Levitin’s book, “The world in Six Songs, How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature”, had just been published (by Dutton Adult, New York); Dr. Levitin was introducing the theories that he presents in his book – a justification for the evolutionary function of music.
He has classified Music as having six evolutionary functions: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. Levitin claims that the human capacity or need to create song provides musicologists with a unique opportunity to study Music’s evolutionary function, based upon his argument that songs, particularly folk songs, are a more honest portrayal of human feelings than other art forms.
Dr. Levitin supports his claim that singing fosters friendship among people, with the argument that singing songs together causes the brain to release oxytocin, thereby creating feelings of trust and bonding. Humans are social beings, and friendship is crucial for the development of community (and safety). He suggests that The First Song was born impulsively, as an expression of joy, and notes that listening to music increases the level of dopamine in the human brain, a substance which causes us to feel good. When caregivers sing to babies, proactin is released in the baby’s brain, providing a sense of comfort. Caregivers would have taken advantage of this to induce sleep in children. Music, Dr. Levetin suggests, preceded Language, and therefore was used to share and communicate knowledge among humans. He claims that Music activates more primitive areas in the brain, and refers us to “The Singing Neanderthal”, by Stephen Mithen, published by Harvard University Press, 2007. Dr. Levitin claims that Music was important in the growth of Monotheism, which emphasized order. Music was used by the Church to create a sense of divine truth. Finally, because Music is meant to impart feelings, Music was used in expressions of romantic love, which, he claims, is unique to humans.
Reflections
I enjoyed the presentation, particularly the vocal performances. While it is clear that several types of songs serve functional capacities, (worship music, lullabies and work songs for example), I do not agree with his vision of Music as serving an evolutionary purpose. It implies that Music needs an evolutionary reason to exist, that Music has affected the way in which humans have evolved, that in order to exist, Music must serve a practical function, one that contributes to our physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. Such an assumption grossly undervalues Music’s existence as a natural, phenomenological expression of human spirituality. By spirituality, I mean that ability of humans to care, to trust, to love, and to be deeply moved by something.
I can understand how sharing songs fosters a sense of community; singing and dancing together generates spiritual bonding, and humans are social animals. Dr. Levitin alludes to the function or usefulness of work songs, creating synchrony and lending pleasure to an otherwise possibly unpleasant task; music in this sense is serving a function. Listening to or engaging in music making, causes our brains to release dopamine. Dopamine is thought to create a positive mood, and positive moods are more conducive to good health. Listening to music could thereby have beneficial mental and physical consequences. His argument in support of Music functioning as comfort is plausible; this may even have been the first discovery of music, but cooing to babies to help them sleep is not the same as singing. Music does help to convey knowledge as well; and he demonstrates this with “the alphabet song”. Also, many cultures tell their histories through song. This is different than using music as language. The story is told using words, music adds to the story by providing an emotional or spiritual component. Levitin claims that music preceded language (2006, p 256), but a clear distinction needs to be made between vocalizing and singing. House cats, for example, use many different inflections when they communicate, (rather, demand), but this is not singing. Animals use vocalizations, as much as we include inflections in our speech in order to impart meaning, but this is not Music. What Music does contribute, however, is the creation of mood, a form of emotional knowledge or communication. If music preceded language, as Dr. Levitin suggests, and if this is an evolutionary function of music, then why would speech have taken over as the preferred mode of communication?
Music is functional to religious experiences in many cultures, particularly our North American Aboriginal cultures. Dr. Levitin may be getting closer to Music’s existence in the spiritual realm by linking it to expressions of love, however, this is not the same as sexual selection. Levitin (2006) agrees with Darwin’s argument that music is conducive to sexual selection, but for different reasons. Darwin suggests that “musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex” (p 251), whereas Levitin agrees with Geoffrey Miller, that “music evolved and continues to function as a courtship display, mostly broadcast by young males to attract females” (p 253). Music exists in the spiritual realm as an expression of love, because Love exists in the spiritual realm. Music has always existed, as long as humans have had the capacity for emotive expression, perhaps before we had the capacity for speech.
I concede that while some practical forms of music assisted in our development as a social species, music itself does not need an evolutionary reason to exist, any more than Life, or Energy, or Love needs a reason to exist. To suggest as much, is to suggest that everything that we experience as spiritual exists because of selective evolution, which is to suggest that nothing exists except to advance us as a species, which is to suggest that the human species is or encapsulates all that there is in the universe, known or unknown, which is highly unlikely. Evolution, I thought, only pertained to species development. We generally think of ourselves as highly developed evolutionary beings, and we tend to think of Music as something that is created by us, and from within us. However, if we think of Music as a first cousin to that state of mind known as enlightened awareness, of bliss, if we acknowledge the mysterious element of Music that at once moves and serves every human being in a personal and private way, if we Westerners can acknowledge the mystery of spiritual communication, then Music becomes one with the Life Energy of which we are all a part. We all have the propensity for musical expression, whether it is manifested as a “happy dance”, the communal sharing of folk songs, or as listening to classical music. It is much more easily accessible than Nirvana, to be sure, but comes from the same source. Levitin states “the archaeological record shows an uninterrupted record of music making everywhere we find humans, and in every era” (256). My concern is how far we Westerners will suppress music, as a form of communion with our spiritual selves, and as a unique form of expressive communication between eachother. Aldous Huxley said: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”.
So far, Music has survived, our evolutionary development, but, while adaptations take as much as fifty thousand years to be manifested (2006, p 256), Levitin warns that “it has only been in the last hundred years or so that the ties between musical sound and human movement have been minimized. The embodied nature of music, the indivisibility of movement and sound, the anthropologist John Blacking writes, characterizes music across cultures and across times” (p 257). As Westerners do away with spirituality, and as music making moves from away from embodied expression to digital production, as our need to develop social communities is replaced by our fears, when the evolutionary “lag” finally catches up to 21st century human society, perhaps we will have discarded our ability to make music.
Reference
Levitin, Daniel J. (2006) This is Your Brain on Music, The Science of a Human Obsession, Plume, Penguin Group, New York
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Being-in-the-World: Culture and Biology
Reference
Becker, Judith. "Being-in-the-world: Culture and Biology." In Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Review
Judith Becker examines music and emotion, and music and trance, through a combination of cultural and biological perspectives. She develops a theory of trance based on emotion using neuroscience and biology as tools. In this chapter in particular, she redefines culture in a way that allows for a biological component.
In Part I, she rethinks perception. Music, especially through trance, can be subversive to the views that 1) there is a definable, objective world, and 2) that I am a single, bounded consciousness that rationally interacts with that world based on accurate perceptions of it. She outlines recent research suggesting that perception and cognition are embedded in embodied action, neither solely a production of the mind nor possessing pregiven properties alone. Repeated behaviour creates linkages between neuronal groupings which may be triggered in a mapped effect when 'perturbed' by a particular physical stimulus (such as a certain piece of music). These bundles of neurons are not hardwired, and so can be reworked based on further interactions with the environment. Dramatic reconnections of these groups during musical ritual can result in a different (and sometimes very extraordinary) perceptual experience of the world.
Part II is titled Biological Phenomenology, which suggests what Becker sets out to do in this section: to combine the study of subjective experience with its possible biological explanations. Objectivist studies of firing neurons are hard to reconcile with those of the phenomenological experiences of our everyday lives and a strict split has been maintained in this regard. Becker elaborates on studies that have bridged this gap, and constitutes consciousness as bodily and interactive. Perception is dependent on the properties of the individual and their chosen interaction with the world. "The environment emerges from the world through the actualization or the being of the organism" (119). Thus, musical events contain an element of self-recreation in the enactment of reality by participants. What's more, deeply personal and emotional musical experiences of trance are played out in the supra-individual domain. "There must be changes in the neurophysiology of the trancer for trancing to occur, but those changes are not attributable simply to the brain/body of a self-contained individual. They occur through the group processes of recurrent interactions between codefined individuals in a rhythmic domain of music that is intrinsically social, visibly embodied, and profoundly cognitive" (129). For Becker, the nature vs. culture dichotomy in music is dissolved by the view that each individual's biological and emotional interactions with performance are the locus of the evolution of music and trancing. She posits a new definition of culture: "Culture (redefined) can be understood as a supraindividual biological phenomenon, a transgenerational history of ongoing social structural couplings that become embodied in the individual and transmitted into the future through actions" (130).
Reflection
I found this chapter informative and intriguing. It seemed to answer many questions that I've long entertained about the deep inter-individual dynamics that occur during group musicking. People often have the sense that they are somehow being shaped by and shaping others through their musical activities, creating a sense of community among participants. I am thrilled and relieved to see this most important aspect of music-making being talked about in academic settings, and without sacrificing the subjective intensity of the experience. Becker has a very powerful way of giving legitimacy to both phenomenological and biological understandings of music practice, especially for such an emotionally intimate experience as trancing. She apparently has a firm grounding in both realms that she deals with. I would be interested to know how this chapter (and the rest of the book) stand up to criticism from both ethnomusicological and scientific communities. I believe the book is quite highly acclaimed in ethnomusicology circles. The rest of the book is also highly relevant to music and brain; I intend to read much more and follow Becker's bibliography to other authors such as Maturana, Varela, Thompson, Rosch, Edelman, etc.
Becker, Judith. "Being-in-the-world: Culture and Biology." In Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Review
Judith Becker examines music and emotion, and music and trance, through a combination of cultural and biological perspectives. She develops a theory of trance based on emotion using neuroscience and biology as tools. In this chapter in particular, she redefines culture in a way that allows for a biological component.
In Part I, she rethinks perception. Music, especially through trance, can be subversive to the views that 1) there is a definable, objective world, and 2) that I am a single, bounded consciousness that rationally interacts with that world based on accurate perceptions of it. She outlines recent research suggesting that perception and cognition are embedded in embodied action, neither solely a production of the mind nor possessing pregiven properties alone. Repeated behaviour creates linkages between neuronal groupings which may be triggered in a mapped effect when 'perturbed' by a particular physical stimulus (such as a certain piece of music). These bundles of neurons are not hardwired, and so can be reworked based on further interactions with the environment. Dramatic reconnections of these groups during musical ritual can result in a different (and sometimes very extraordinary) perceptual experience of the world.
Part II is titled Biological Phenomenology, which suggests what Becker sets out to do in this section: to combine the study of subjective experience with its possible biological explanations. Objectivist studies of firing neurons are hard to reconcile with those of the phenomenological experiences of our everyday lives and a strict split has been maintained in this regard. Becker elaborates on studies that have bridged this gap, and constitutes consciousness as bodily and interactive. Perception is dependent on the properties of the individual and their chosen interaction with the world. "The environment emerges from the world through the actualization or the being of the organism" (119). Thus, musical events contain an element of self-recreation in the enactment of reality by participants. What's more, deeply personal and emotional musical experiences of trance are played out in the supra-individual domain. "There must be changes in the neurophysiology of the trancer for trancing to occur, but those changes are not attributable simply to the brain/body of a self-contained individual. They occur through the group processes of recurrent interactions between codefined individuals in a rhythmic domain of music that is intrinsically social, visibly embodied, and profoundly cognitive" (129). For Becker, the nature vs. culture dichotomy in music is dissolved by the view that each individual's biological and emotional interactions with performance are the locus of the evolution of music and trancing. She posits a new definition of culture: "Culture (redefined) can be understood as a supraindividual biological phenomenon, a transgenerational history of ongoing social structural couplings that become embodied in the individual and transmitted into the future through actions" (130).
Reflection
I found this chapter informative and intriguing. It seemed to answer many questions that I've long entertained about the deep inter-individual dynamics that occur during group musicking. People often have the sense that they are somehow being shaped by and shaping others through their musical activities, creating a sense of community among participants. I am thrilled and relieved to see this most important aspect of music-making being talked about in academic settings, and without sacrificing the subjective intensity of the experience. Becker has a very powerful way of giving legitimacy to both phenomenological and biological understandings of music practice, especially for such an emotionally intimate experience as trancing. She apparently has a firm grounding in both realms that she deals with. I would be interested to know how this chapter (and the rest of the book) stand up to criticism from both ethnomusicological and scientific communities. I believe the book is quite highly acclaimed in ethnomusicology circles. The rest of the book is also highly relevant to music and brain; I intend to read much more and follow Becker's bibliography to other authors such as Maturana, Varela, Thompson, Rosch, Edelman, etc.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Savant Talent.
Reviewer: Liesel Deppe
Reference: Pring, Linda. Savant Talent. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, Volume 47, 2005. 500-503.
Summary: In this paper, Dr. Pring discusses talent and how it relates to people who are savants. In this article she also tries to explain how the talents of savants compare and differ from experts in the same fields. She acknowledges that it is difficult to define talent: is talent innate, or does it develop as a result of practice?
There is a discussion of the various talents of savants, as well as a discussion of intelligence, implicit learning, and the organization of knowledge. The conclusion is that a weak cognitive style – weak coherence-may predispose people to develop certain talents.
Dr. Pring begins by defining what a savant is, before discussing talents associated with savants: music, calendar and numerical calculation, language-related and art.
Cognitive theories of savant syndrome: Is talent merely a manifestation of obsessive practice? In part this may be true, but that does not account for the fact that savants display talent at an early age in the absence of any training.
Rote memory may also play a role in the abilities of a savant: With calendar abilities, this may play a role in that a key date may be learned and then calculations made from that.
As mentioned before, weak coherence may predispose some savants to develop astonishing abilities, in that it may also be an adaptive strategy.
Review and personal response: This article, although short, seems to invite the reader to find out more about the talents of savants. It also made me wonder how many brilliant people there are, who might be borderline savants, or suffer from autistic spectrum disorder. As Dr. Pring states: “Although weak coherence has been linked to thinking
style in physicists and engineers, as well as artists, the experimental evidence has generally been limited to comparing autistic individuals with and without talents…”
This article certainly made me think about “what is normal?” and “what really is talent?”
Reference: Pring, Linda. Savant Talent. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, Volume 47, 2005. 500-503.
Summary: In this paper, Dr. Pring discusses talent and how it relates to people who are savants. In this article she also tries to explain how the talents of savants compare and differ from experts in the same fields. She acknowledges that it is difficult to define talent: is talent innate, or does it develop as a result of practice?
There is a discussion of the various talents of savants, as well as a discussion of intelligence, implicit learning, and the organization of knowledge. The conclusion is that a weak cognitive style – weak coherence-may predispose people to develop certain talents.
Dr. Pring begins by defining what a savant is, before discussing talents associated with savants: music, calendar and numerical calculation, language-related and art.
Cognitive theories of savant syndrome: Is talent merely a manifestation of obsessive practice? In part this may be true, but that does not account for the fact that savants display talent at an early age in the absence of any training.
Rote memory may also play a role in the abilities of a savant: With calendar abilities, this may play a role in that a key date may be learned and then calculations made from that.
As mentioned before, weak coherence may predispose some savants to develop astonishing abilities, in that it may also be an adaptive strategy.
Review and personal response: This article, although short, seems to invite the reader to find out more about the talents of savants. It also made me wonder how many brilliant people there are, who might be borderline savants, or suffer from autistic spectrum disorder. As Dr. Pring states: “Although weak coherence has been linked to thinking
style in physicists and engineers, as well as artists, the experimental evidence has generally been limited to comparing autistic individuals with and without talents…”
This article certainly made me think about “what is normal?” and “what really is talent?”
FIREWALKING:A Theory Based on Biofeedback and Variable Set Point
Reviewer: Liesel Deppe
Reference:
FIREWALKING:A Theory Based on Biofeedback and Variable Set Points by Yu-Wen Shaw
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web2/Shaw.html
Summary: This is a paper that Yu-Wen Shaw wrote for a class at Bryn Mawr University in 2000. The author theorizes about why people can walk over a bed of hot coals successfully, i.e. not sustain any injuries. She puts forward two hypotheses: biofeedback and variable set points, focusing on the former.
Variable Set Points: The phenomenon of walking on hot coals can be explained by the various set points in our brains. In biology, most processes are governed by maintaining equilibrium. The various points of biological equilibrium can also be found in our own bodies: for example regulating body temperature in the hypothalamus, which varies amongst animals. This also explains why certain animals can survive winter temperatures, while humans may freeze in those same conditions, or why people tremble when they have a fever. A fever causes the body to re-establish lower and higher set points. Thus, perhaps it is possible for firewalkers to reset their body temperatures and not sustain injury.
Biofeedback: Biofeedback is a "a method for learned control of physiological responses of the body" Psychologists use biofeedback to help patients with anxiety, and it has also been applied in pain relief. Generally, people use instruments to monitor body behaviour: EMG for muscle tension, skin temperature, brainwaves (EEG) and respiration (breathing techniques). While these are sophisticate methods, it is thought that perhaps firewalkers developed their own way to combine biofeedback and variable feedback to empower themselves to walk on hot coals. Firewalkers need to be psychologically prepared to endure the heat and raise their internal thermal set point in order to tolerate the heat. Neurologically some input signals may be prevented from firing in the brain, hence not pain. This would also explain why some people feel more pain than others.
Review: I found this paper very interesting, but rather short, both in length and information. The points are set out clearly and logically, however I question the resources the author used. Most of the sources seemed to be internet-based and no longer active.
Personal Response: Having grown up in Durban, South Africa, where one would find a large population of Indians, I was aware of the spiritual practice of firewalking amongst the Hindu Indians. Recently, it occurred to me that perhaps there was something brain-related to this, i.e. the power of the mind (brain). A search online elicited numerous pages, but nothing particularly scholarly in nature, even in the medical databases.
I do believe in the power of the mind, constantly striving to improve it- - even though I probably never attempt to walk on hot coals. In addition to being a spiritual experience, I think firewalking can be viewed as a powerful example of the mind at work.
Reference:
FIREWALKING:A Theory Based on Biofeedback and Variable Set Points by Yu-Wen Shaw
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web2/Shaw.html
Summary: This is a paper that Yu-Wen Shaw wrote for a class at Bryn Mawr University in 2000. The author theorizes about why people can walk over a bed of hot coals successfully, i.e. not sustain any injuries. She puts forward two hypotheses: biofeedback and variable set points, focusing on the former.
Variable Set Points: The phenomenon of walking on hot coals can be explained by the various set points in our brains. In biology, most processes are governed by maintaining equilibrium. The various points of biological equilibrium can also be found in our own bodies: for example regulating body temperature in the hypothalamus, which varies amongst animals. This also explains why certain animals can survive winter temperatures, while humans may freeze in those same conditions, or why people tremble when they have a fever. A fever causes the body to re-establish lower and higher set points. Thus, perhaps it is possible for firewalkers to reset their body temperatures and not sustain injury.
Biofeedback: Biofeedback is a "a method for learned control of physiological responses of the body" Psychologists use biofeedback to help patients with anxiety, and it has also been applied in pain relief. Generally, people use instruments to monitor body behaviour: EMG for muscle tension, skin temperature, brainwaves (EEG) and respiration (breathing techniques). While these are sophisticate methods, it is thought that perhaps firewalkers developed their own way to combine biofeedback and variable feedback to empower themselves to walk on hot coals. Firewalkers need to be psychologically prepared to endure the heat and raise their internal thermal set point in order to tolerate the heat. Neurologically some input signals may be prevented from firing in the brain, hence not pain. This would also explain why some people feel more pain than others.
Review: I found this paper very interesting, but rather short, both in length and information. The points are set out clearly and logically, however I question the resources the author used. Most of the sources seemed to be internet-based and no longer active.
Personal Response: Having grown up in Durban, South Africa, where one would find a large population of Indians, I was aware of the spiritual practice of firewalking amongst the Hindu Indians. Recently, it occurred to me that perhaps there was something brain-related to this, i.e. the power of the mind (brain). A search online elicited numerous pages, but nothing particularly scholarly in nature, even in the medical databases.
I do believe in the power of the mind, constantly striving to improve it- - even though I probably never attempt to walk on hot coals. In addition to being a spiritual experience, I think firewalking can be viewed as a powerful example of the mind at work.
Feeling the Real World: Limbic Response to Music Depends on Related Content.
Reviewed by Liesel Deppe
Reference: Eldar, Eran and Ganor, Ori. Feeling the Real World: Limbic Response to Music Depends on Related Content. Cerebral Cortex, December 2007.
Summary: Emotions are frequently object-related – whether a person or an object in the world. However the following question has not yet been adequately answered: are the object and the emotional response to it processed in different parts of the brain, or does that part of the brain that processes emotion also process content (i.e. the object)?
The authors used fMRI to demonstrate their findings. In order to keep the variables to a minimum, test subjects were shown 12 short films, which are emotionally poor, but rich in real-world details. Then they listened to emotional music, which although rich in emotional content, lacks details on the concrete world. Finally, subjects were shown a neutral film (poor in emotionality, but rich in real-world details) while listening to emotional music, which is rich in emotion, but does not give details about the concrete world. The first two tests were done as controls, in order to determine where in the brain increased activity takes place, and as mentioned before, to limit the number of variables.
What did they find? Combining emotional music with a neutral film elicited increased activity in the amygdale, hippocampus and lateral pre-frontal regions. The emotional music on its own did not obtain the same increased activity in these parts of the brain.
What does this mean? Since the amygdala is the heart of the emotional brain, this study seems to demonstrate that the brain response to an emotional stimulus is enhanced when there is also a concrete world component. This means that real-world content is important in emotional processing.
Review and Response: The authors set put their methodology well and systematically enough for a lay person to understand. Due to my lack of knowledge, I cannot comment on the methodology itself, or whether they addressed all the possible variables.
I was particularly intrigued by the authors’ assertion that there is a possible neurological link between emotion and cognition (as in perceptual-association content) in the human mind. While humans and animals share the same basic emotions, those of humans seem to have become more sophisticated. They can no longer be seen as meaningless forces that rule human behaviour, but can be mitigated by our increased cognition. To me, this also means that while emotions are valid, we still have choice in modifying/ choosing our behaviour because, or in spite of our emotions.
Reference: Eldar, Eran and Ganor, Ori. Feeling the Real World: Limbic Response to Music Depends on Related Content. Cerebral Cortex, December 2007.
Summary: Emotions are frequently object-related – whether a person or an object in the world. However the following question has not yet been adequately answered: are the object and the emotional response to it processed in different parts of the brain, or does that part of the brain that processes emotion also process content (i.e. the object)?
The authors used fMRI to demonstrate their findings. In order to keep the variables to a minimum, test subjects were shown 12 short films, which are emotionally poor, but rich in real-world details. Then they listened to emotional music, which although rich in emotional content, lacks details on the concrete world. Finally, subjects were shown a neutral film (poor in emotionality, but rich in real-world details) while listening to emotional music, which is rich in emotion, but does not give details about the concrete world. The first two tests were done as controls, in order to determine where in the brain increased activity takes place, and as mentioned before, to limit the number of variables.
What did they find? Combining emotional music with a neutral film elicited increased activity in the amygdale, hippocampus and lateral pre-frontal regions. The emotional music on its own did not obtain the same increased activity in these parts of the brain.
What does this mean? Since the amygdala is the heart of the emotional brain, this study seems to demonstrate that the brain response to an emotional stimulus is enhanced when there is also a concrete world component. This means that real-world content is important in emotional processing.
Review and Response: The authors set put their methodology well and systematically enough for a lay person to understand. Due to my lack of knowledge, I cannot comment on the methodology itself, or whether they addressed all the possible variables.
I was particularly intrigued by the authors’ assertion that there is a possible neurological link between emotion and cognition (as in perceptual-association content) in the human mind. While humans and animals share the same basic emotions, those of humans seem to have become more sophisticated. They can no longer be seen as meaningless forces that rule human behaviour, but can be mitigated by our increased cognition. To me, this also means that while emotions are valid, we still have choice in modifying/ choosing our behaviour because, or in spite of our emotions.
"Sing the Syllables, Silly!"
Songs as an Aid for Language Acquisition
Daniel Schon, Maud Boyer, Sylvain Moreno, Mireille Besson, Esabelle Peretz, Regine Kolinsky
In Science Direct (2008) 106, 975-983
Review and Response by John Picone
As a long time lover of both music and language, I have recently become intrigued by the possible relationship between the two, specifically, what role music might play in linguistic development.
Previous research studies have shown that adults and infants can use the statistical properties of syllable sequences to extract words from continuous speech. They have also shown that a similar learning mechanism operates with music stimuli.
In this work we combined linguistic and musical information and we compared language learning based on speech sequences to language learning based on sung sequences. We hypothesized that, compared to speech sequences, a consistent mapping of linguistic and musical information would enhance learning. Results confirmed the hypothesis showing a strong learning facilitation of song compared to speech. Most importantly, the present results show that learning a new language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit of the motivational and structuring properties of music in song (p. 975).
Indeed, songs may contribute to language acquisition in several ways. First, the emotion aspects of a song may increase the level of arousal and attention. Second, from a perceptual point of view, the presence of pitch contours may enhance phonological discrimination, since syllable change is often accompanied by a change in pitch. Third, the consistent mapping of musical and linguistic structure may optimize the operation of learning mechanisms (p. 976).
The researchers point out that one of the first challenges in learning a new language is to segment speech into words. One becomes acutely aware of this challenge when learning a new language which at first sounds like an uninterrupted stream of meaningless sounds. While word units in print text are marked by a space between the words, the word boundaries in speech are not necessarily marked by consistent acoustical cues such as pauses. So, how is it that we learn these word boundaries?
We accomplish this by discerning, unconsciously, the transitional probability of syllable sequences. In essence, there is a statistical probability that some syllables will follow others in a word, while others will end or begin a word. For example, given the phonological sequence prettybaby, the transitional probability is greater from pre to ty than from ty to ba. Both adults and infants use these statistical properties of syllable sequences to extract word units from continuous speech.
Other studies have shown that this statistical learning ability is not only language related, but can also operate with non-linguistic stimuli such as tones. That is, a similar statistical learning mechanism operates for tone sequence segmentation. For the researchers, this raises the possibility that a common learning device may be involved for both language and music. Given this, the experiments conducted in this study compare learning based on spoken sequences to learning based on sung sequences.
The researchers conducted three experiments, the third being, perhaps, the most intriguing. Each experiment involved 26 native French speakers, a different group for each experiment. The participants in each experiment listened to a continuous stream of speech for a period of seven minutes. The choice of time is significant as the researchers determined that it would be impossible to learn the spoken word units in such a short period of time, but hypothesized that it would be possible to learn them when they were sung. This decision was informed by a previous study (Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996) that determined that participants needed roughly 20 minutes to learn the word units of a spoken stream of speech.
The researchers created a language of six trisyllabic words: gimysy, mimosi, pogysi, pymiso, sipygy, sysipi. The participants listened, in random order, to 108 repetitions of each of the six words, with the only constraint of never repeating the same word twice in a row. The text was presented to the participants using a speech synthesizer. No acoustical cues were inserted at word boundaries resulting in a rather monotone and continuous stream of syllables. The participants were told to listen to the sounds carefully, but not to analyze them in any way.
To test how well the participants learned the word units of the new language, they were presented with pairs of words, one being a word from the new language and the other a part-word made up of syllables from the new language, but not configured as a word. The part-words were comprised either of the last syllable of a “real” word followed by the first two syllable of a word, or the last two syllables of a word followed by the first syllable of another word. In other words, the “marker” syllables – first and last of a word – were placed in an opposite position. The participants had to choose which of the two words was one of the six of the new language. Each participant was presented with 36 pairs of words.
The results of the first experiment showed that the participants’ level of performance was not significantly different from chance: 48% correct. After 7 minutes of exposure to the new language, they were unable to discriminate words from part-words.
The second experiment was identical to the first except that the syllables of the continuous stream were sung by the synthesizer rather than spoken. It is important to note that the testing phase of the experiment was also identical to the previous experiment in that the items were spoken not sung. The difference was that each syllable was associated to a distinct tone and therefore each word was always sung on the same melodic contour.
Correct choices in the testing phase rose to 64%. The researchers concluded that the simple addition of musical information allowed the participants to discriminate words from part-words.
In responding to how language learning may benefit from musical information, the study concludes the following:
First, a general increase in the level of arousal or attention might increase overall performance. Second, the presence of tonal and discrete pitch changes between syllables may enhance phonological boundaries and therefore increase phonological discrimination. Indeed, syllables may be distinguished not only on the basis of their phonetic properties, but also on the basis of pitch information, and may also benefit of the gestalt properties of pitch, especially of grouping. Third, the consistent mapping of linguistic and melodic boundaries may enhance global transitional probabilities, thereby increasing the efficacy of the statistical learning mechanism (p. 980).
The goal of the third variation of the experiment was to sort out which of these explanations best explains the effect of musical facilitation.
While, in the third experiment, the syllables were still sung, linguistic and musical boundaries no longer matched. More precisely, while the second and third syllables of each sung word had consistent pitches, the first syllable could be sung on six different pitches. The testing phase was identical to the previous two experiments using spoken items.
This allowed us to (1) keep arousal constant because music had exactly the same structure as in Experiment 2, and (2) preserve phonological boundaries enhancement, because each syllable was still sung on a precise pitch. However, by decorrelating linguistic and musical boundaries, we eliminated the superposition of linguistic and melodic transitional probabilities. If we were to find the same facilitation effect as in the second experiment, then the effect should be due to arousal/attention or boundary enhancement. By contrast, if the effect were to disappear, then it would mostly be due to superposition of transitional probabilities (p. 980).
The study concludes that the results of this third experiment were significantly different from chance: 56% correct. For the researchers, the implication is that arousal and/or boundary enhancement play a role in learning.
This is in line with previous results with babies showing that infant-directed speech increases infants’ attention to fluent speech and consequently to the statistical relationship between syllables (Thiessen, Hill, & Saffrran, 2005). Moreover, if we were to consider that music is akin to prosody, these results would be in line with previous findings showing that prosodic information is important for segmentation…. Another interesting finding is that our results seem to point to the fact that, in the presence of multiple statistical cues, linguistic statistical cues take precedence over musical statistical cues (p. 981).
The reasons offered for this last finding are that the participants were all adults and not musicians. They concede that different results might be found in musicians and infants for whom prosodic cues are not only relevant but can even be more important.
Overall, our results are clear in pointing to the fact that learning is optimal when the conditions for both the emotional/arousal and linguistic functions are fulfilled. Therefore, learning a foreign language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit from the motivational and structuring properties of music in song. Whether this learning gain will extend to language acquisition in infants would be interesting to explore in future work. Indeed, if it were the case, it would support the idea that lullabies and children’s songs may have not only an emotional (communicative and reassuring) function, but would also facilitate linguistic processing due to their simple and repetitive nature (p. 982).
Initially, this study seemed difficult to respond to. Then, considering the study’s findings about music and arousal, I popped a CD of The Hannaford Street Silver Band into the stereo to see if that would help.
First, I do not find the results of the third experiment – 56% correct – to be earth shattering. However, I will give the researchers the benefit of concluding that this is, indeed, significant. It is certainly markedly better than the result of the first experiment.
I must also comment that I thought having the third experiment was quite a responsible undertaking. Prosody in normal speech is, indeed, variable as are the melodic contours of infant-directed speech. It’s not likely that a baby will hear “Time for beddy-bye!” sung the same way all the time. I also have a new appreciation for “baby talk.” It was something I rather loathed when other people spoke to my own children when they were infants in this fashion. What I find intriguing in this regard is the fact that mothers and grandmothers seem to naturally speak to infants in this way. Are maternal brains hardwired – unbeknownst to them – to enhance linguistic development in babies by speaking to them with the exaggerated musical contours of baby talk? Is this another miracle of the brain? Thankfully, my own children didn’t suffer from the exposure of their father’s “adult” talk as I often sang to them, perched on my lap, while I played the piano.
The study points to the statistical probability of syllable placement as significant in learning spoken word units. One aspect of syllabification that the study did not explore was the role of accented syllables. To what degree does the statistical placement of accented syllables contribute to learning aural word segmentation? This also leads me to wonder where accented or stressed syllables come from? Why is it, for example, that French tends not to stress the first syllable, whereas the same word in English does, in fact, often stress the first syllable: Mi - chel’ becomes Mi’ - chael; o - range’ becomes o’ - range. Accented syllables are expressed in pitch contours. Would this make it more difficult for a native English speaker to learn French as opposed to German or another language whose accented syllable placement and attending pitch contours more closely mimic English?
I also wonder if spoken Italian, whose melodic contours are much more “musical” than English, would be an easier language to learn than a language less musical in its sound.
My final response to this study has to do with music and the apparent arousal of pleasure it causes thereby facilitating learning in general. As a secondary school teacher, I often hear complaints by parents that their children insist on doing their homework with music blaring in the background. Is this a distraction or does the arousal facilitate learning the geometry concepts that will be on tomorrow’s test?
I seriously wondered if playing music, as I reflected on this study, would increase the possibility of insights into it, questions about it. Truly, I think it did.
Perhaps I’ve discovered the “Brass Band Effect!”
Daniel Schon, Maud Boyer, Sylvain Moreno, Mireille Besson, Esabelle Peretz, Regine Kolinsky
In Science Direct (2008) 106, 975-983
Review and Response by John Picone
As a long time lover of both music and language, I have recently become intrigued by the possible relationship between the two, specifically, what role music might play in linguistic development.
Previous research studies have shown that adults and infants can use the statistical properties of syllable sequences to extract words from continuous speech. They have also shown that a similar learning mechanism operates with music stimuli.
In this work we combined linguistic and musical information and we compared language learning based on speech sequences to language learning based on sung sequences. We hypothesized that, compared to speech sequences, a consistent mapping of linguistic and musical information would enhance learning. Results confirmed the hypothesis showing a strong learning facilitation of song compared to speech. Most importantly, the present results show that learning a new language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit of the motivational and structuring properties of music in song (p. 975).
Indeed, songs may contribute to language acquisition in several ways. First, the emotion aspects of a song may increase the level of arousal and attention. Second, from a perceptual point of view, the presence of pitch contours may enhance phonological discrimination, since syllable change is often accompanied by a change in pitch. Third, the consistent mapping of musical and linguistic structure may optimize the operation of learning mechanisms (p. 976).
The researchers point out that one of the first challenges in learning a new language is to segment speech into words. One becomes acutely aware of this challenge when learning a new language which at first sounds like an uninterrupted stream of meaningless sounds. While word units in print text are marked by a space between the words, the word boundaries in speech are not necessarily marked by consistent acoustical cues such as pauses. So, how is it that we learn these word boundaries?
We accomplish this by discerning, unconsciously, the transitional probability of syllable sequences. In essence, there is a statistical probability that some syllables will follow others in a word, while others will end or begin a word. For example, given the phonological sequence prettybaby, the transitional probability is greater from pre to ty than from ty to ba. Both adults and infants use these statistical properties of syllable sequences to extract word units from continuous speech.
Other studies have shown that this statistical learning ability is not only language related, but can also operate with non-linguistic stimuli such as tones. That is, a similar statistical learning mechanism operates for tone sequence segmentation. For the researchers, this raises the possibility that a common learning device may be involved for both language and music. Given this, the experiments conducted in this study compare learning based on spoken sequences to learning based on sung sequences.
The researchers conducted three experiments, the third being, perhaps, the most intriguing. Each experiment involved 26 native French speakers, a different group for each experiment. The participants in each experiment listened to a continuous stream of speech for a period of seven minutes. The choice of time is significant as the researchers determined that it would be impossible to learn the spoken word units in such a short period of time, but hypothesized that it would be possible to learn them when they were sung. This decision was informed by a previous study (Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996) that determined that participants needed roughly 20 minutes to learn the word units of a spoken stream of speech.
The researchers created a language of six trisyllabic words: gimysy, mimosi, pogysi, pymiso, sipygy, sysipi. The participants listened, in random order, to 108 repetitions of each of the six words, with the only constraint of never repeating the same word twice in a row. The text was presented to the participants using a speech synthesizer. No acoustical cues were inserted at word boundaries resulting in a rather monotone and continuous stream of syllables. The participants were told to listen to the sounds carefully, but not to analyze them in any way.
To test how well the participants learned the word units of the new language, they were presented with pairs of words, one being a word from the new language and the other a part-word made up of syllables from the new language, but not configured as a word. The part-words were comprised either of the last syllable of a “real” word followed by the first two syllable of a word, or the last two syllables of a word followed by the first syllable of another word. In other words, the “marker” syllables – first and last of a word – were placed in an opposite position. The participants had to choose which of the two words was one of the six of the new language. Each participant was presented with 36 pairs of words.
The results of the first experiment showed that the participants’ level of performance was not significantly different from chance: 48% correct. After 7 minutes of exposure to the new language, they were unable to discriminate words from part-words.
The second experiment was identical to the first except that the syllables of the continuous stream were sung by the synthesizer rather than spoken. It is important to note that the testing phase of the experiment was also identical to the previous experiment in that the items were spoken not sung. The difference was that each syllable was associated to a distinct tone and therefore each word was always sung on the same melodic contour.
Correct choices in the testing phase rose to 64%. The researchers concluded that the simple addition of musical information allowed the participants to discriminate words from part-words.
In responding to how language learning may benefit from musical information, the study concludes the following:
First, a general increase in the level of arousal or attention might increase overall performance. Second, the presence of tonal and discrete pitch changes between syllables may enhance phonological boundaries and therefore increase phonological discrimination. Indeed, syllables may be distinguished not only on the basis of their phonetic properties, but also on the basis of pitch information, and may also benefit of the gestalt properties of pitch, especially of grouping. Third, the consistent mapping of linguistic and melodic boundaries may enhance global transitional probabilities, thereby increasing the efficacy of the statistical learning mechanism (p. 980).
The goal of the third variation of the experiment was to sort out which of these explanations best explains the effect of musical facilitation.
While, in the third experiment, the syllables were still sung, linguistic and musical boundaries no longer matched. More precisely, while the second and third syllables of each sung word had consistent pitches, the first syllable could be sung on six different pitches. The testing phase was identical to the previous two experiments using spoken items.
This allowed us to (1) keep arousal constant because music had exactly the same structure as in Experiment 2, and (2) preserve phonological boundaries enhancement, because each syllable was still sung on a precise pitch. However, by decorrelating linguistic and musical boundaries, we eliminated the superposition of linguistic and melodic transitional probabilities. If we were to find the same facilitation effect as in the second experiment, then the effect should be due to arousal/attention or boundary enhancement. By contrast, if the effect were to disappear, then it would mostly be due to superposition of transitional probabilities (p. 980).
The study concludes that the results of this third experiment were significantly different from chance: 56% correct. For the researchers, the implication is that arousal and/or boundary enhancement play a role in learning.
This is in line with previous results with babies showing that infant-directed speech increases infants’ attention to fluent speech and consequently to the statistical relationship between syllables (Thiessen, Hill, & Saffrran, 2005). Moreover, if we were to consider that music is akin to prosody, these results would be in line with previous findings showing that prosodic information is important for segmentation…. Another interesting finding is that our results seem to point to the fact that, in the presence of multiple statistical cues, linguistic statistical cues take precedence over musical statistical cues (p. 981).
The reasons offered for this last finding are that the participants were all adults and not musicians. They concede that different results might be found in musicians and infants for whom prosodic cues are not only relevant but can even be more important.
Overall, our results are clear in pointing to the fact that learning is optimal when the conditions for both the emotional/arousal and linguistic functions are fulfilled. Therefore, learning a foreign language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit from the motivational and structuring properties of music in song. Whether this learning gain will extend to language acquisition in infants would be interesting to explore in future work. Indeed, if it were the case, it would support the idea that lullabies and children’s songs may have not only an emotional (communicative and reassuring) function, but would also facilitate linguistic processing due to their simple and repetitive nature (p. 982).
Initially, this study seemed difficult to respond to. Then, considering the study’s findings about music and arousal, I popped a CD of The Hannaford Street Silver Band into the stereo to see if that would help.
First, I do not find the results of the third experiment – 56% correct – to be earth shattering. However, I will give the researchers the benefit of concluding that this is, indeed, significant. It is certainly markedly better than the result of the first experiment.
I must also comment that I thought having the third experiment was quite a responsible undertaking. Prosody in normal speech is, indeed, variable as are the melodic contours of infant-directed speech. It’s not likely that a baby will hear “Time for beddy-bye!” sung the same way all the time. I also have a new appreciation for “baby talk.” It was something I rather loathed when other people spoke to my own children when they were infants in this fashion. What I find intriguing in this regard is the fact that mothers and grandmothers seem to naturally speak to infants in this way. Are maternal brains hardwired – unbeknownst to them – to enhance linguistic development in babies by speaking to them with the exaggerated musical contours of baby talk? Is this another miracle of the brain? Thankfully, my own children didn’t suffer from the exposure of their father’s “adult” talk as I often sang to them, perched on my lap, while I played the piano.
The study points to the statistical probability of syllable placement as significant in learning spoken word units. One aspect of syllabification that the study did not explore was the role of accented syllables. To what degree does the statistical placement of accented syllables contribute to learning aural word segmentation? This also leads me to wonder where accented or stressed syllables come from? Why is it, for example, that French tends not to stress the first syllable, whereas the same word in English does, in fact, often stress the first syllable: Mi - chel’ becomes Mi’ - chael; o - range’ becomes o’ - range. Accented syllables are expressed in pitch contours. Would this make it more difficult for a native English speaker to learn French as opposed to German or another language whose accented syllable placement and attending pitch contours more closely mimic English?
I also wonder if spoken Italian, whose melodic contours are much more “musical” than English, would be an easier language to learn than a language less musical in its sound.
My final response to this study has to do with music and the apparent arousal of pleasure it causes thereby facilitating learning in general. As a secondary school teacher, I often hear complaints by parents that their children insist on doing their homework with music blaring in the background. Is this a distraction or does the arousal facilitate learning the geometry concepts that will be on tomorrow’s test?
I seriously wondered if playing music, as I reflected on this study, would increase the possibility of insights into it, questions about it. Truly, I think it did.
Perhaps I’ve discovered the “Brass Band Effect!”
Music Teachers and Music Therapists: helping children
Music Teachers and Music Therapists: Helping Children Together Author(s): Allyson Patterson Source: Music Educators Journal, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Mar., 2003), pp. 35-38 Published by: MENC: The National Association for Music Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3399902 Accessed: 11/11/2008 18:08
This article helps to clearly define music therapy and how it helps clients by using music and sound to improve their mental and physical health. The American Music Therapy Association defines it as “the prescribed use of music by a qualified person to effect positive changes in the physiological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals…”
The author devotes a lot of time discussing the difference between a music educator and a music therapist which most of us music specialists are aware of (educators teach/instruct on the activity of performing music and therapists use musical means to address disease or disorder in clients). Nevertheless, the distinction between the two is crucial.
Much like the article I mentioned in my other blog, music therapists use music as a tool to strengthen a functional area of a client’s life through “participation in musical experiences”. As in the other blog, this therapy uses cognitive rather than a physiological associations to music in order to build skills. It is not that they are exposed to music and suddenly they are cured; it is through performing and listening to music that clients associate the music to a function or skill.
Clients/students use songs to learn and retain information, and therapists address non-musical goals/needs through participation in musical activities. For example, clients may learn the process of tying a shoelace through the use of a song. It is also mentioned that students retained more information from music or song based sources than from regular speech-based sources. This resonated with me if only that I believe most of us can recall a nursery rhyme faster than we can recall what we had for breakfast.
This article helps to clearly define music therapy and how it helps clients by using music and sound to improve their mental and physical health. The American Music Therapy Association defines it as “the prescribed use of music by a qualified person to effect positive changes in the physiological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals…”
The author devotes a lot of time discussing the difference between a music educator and a music therapist which most of us music specialists are aware of (educators teach/instruct on the activity of performing music and therapists use musical means to address disease or disorder in clients). Nevertheless, the distinction between the two is crucial.
Much like the article I mentioned in my other blog, music therapists use music as a tool to strengthen a functional area of a client’s life through “participation in musical experiences”. As in the other blog, this therapy uses cognitive rather than a physiological associations to music in order to build skills. It is not that they are exposed to music and suddenly they are cured; it is through performing and listening to music that clients associate the music to a function or skill.
Clients/students use songs to learn and retain information, and therapists address non-musical goals/needs through participation in musical activities. For example, clients may learn the process of tying a shoelace through the use of a song. It is also mentioned that students retained more information from music or song based sources than from regular speech-based sources. This resonated with me if only that I believe most of us can recall a nursery rhyme faster than we can recall what we had for breakfast.
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