Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolu... more Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision-making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information-seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.
Savage et al. make a compelling case, Mehr et al. less so, for social bonding and credible signal... more Savage et al. make a compelling case, Mehr et al. less so, for social bonding and credible signalling, respectively, as the main adaptive function of human musicality. We express general advocacy for the former thesis, highlighting: (1) overlap between the two; (2) direct versus derived biological functions, and (3) aspects of music embedded in cultural evolution, for example, departures from tonality.
Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, Jan 20, 2012
In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists... more In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2006), the world was granted its first exclusive introduction to the steadily growing dating coach and pick-up artist community. Many of its most prominent authorities claim to use insights and information gleaned both through first-hand experience as well as empirical research in evolutionary psychology. One of the industry's most well-respected authorities, the illusionist Erik von Markovik, promotes a three-phase model of human courtship: Attraction, building mutual Comfort and Trust, and Seduction. The following review argues that many of these claims are in fact grounded in solid empirical findings from social, physiological and evolutionary psychology. Two texts which represent much of this literature are critiqued and their implications discussed.
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2020
Evolutionary musicology is a subdiscipline of biomusicology, the study of music from a biological... more Evolutionary musicology is a subdiscipline of biomusicology, the study of music from a biological perspective, which embeds the psychological and physiological mechanisms of human music perception and production in the theory of biological evolution. Evolutionary musicology studies the origin and evolution of music in the human species, encompassing vocal communication and musical behaviors in non-human animal species; behavioral, cognitive, and neurological development of musical processing and skill; cross-cultural human universals in musical capacity and cognitive processing; and archeological evidence to develop hypotheses concerning the evolution of human musical appreciation and music-making.
Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to thei... more Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of "musilanguage" in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language.
Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolu... more Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision-making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information-seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.
Theory of mind, also known as mentalising, meta-representation, second-order intentionality, or m... more Theory of mind, also known as mentalising, meta-representation, second-order intentionality, or mindreading is the ability to attribute and reflect on the mental states of others. A number of investigators have noted that an important relationship exists between child language development and children's understanding of second-order intentionality. However, although the ontogeny of theory of mind has been extensively studied over the past few decades, only recently have we begun to understand more concerning the limits of human mentalising ability in adults. For example, several studies have shown that the limits of mentalising ability for normal adults are consistently placed around fifth-order intentionality (i.e. I believe that you suppose that I imagine that you want me to believe that...), forming a naturally recursive hierarchy which corresponds to increasingly embedded mindreading. Moreover, several psychologists have recently suggested the adult capacity for higher-order intentionality may have played a critical role in the evolution of language, including especially the ability for recursive syntax comprehension and production, according to a cognitive bootstrapping effect. Here, we used the Imposing Memory Task (n = 210 female and 204 male adults) to analyse the association and interaction between higher-order intentionality capacity and performance on a recursive syntax measure. Multiple regression analyses indicated that recursive syntax abilities are lower than mindreading competences below fifth-order, but then reverses at higher values. In addition, a path analysis further suggested intentionality capacity as the likely causal variable. Thus, these results seem to suggest that first-order through fifth-order intentionality is necessary to assist the processing of simpler syntactic structures, but beyond fifth-order intentionality the cognitive scaffolding provided by recursive syntax may be engaged to enable higher-order mentalising. In summary, this may explain in part how and why many modern languages exhibit recursive syntax.
Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species... more Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species. It has been suggested by some commentators that the primary biological function of human language is to deceive and selfishly manipulate social competitors. However, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical literature in favor of the social bonding hypothesis for language function, the ostensible evidence and arguments for the deception hypothesis have not been fully discussed. The following review analyses the evidence and theoretical arguments from human social behavior, comparative animal behavior, and developmental psychology and suggests that deception shows clear signs of a derived function for language. Furthermore, in addition to being used relatively infrequently across most human and non-human animal contexts, deception appears to be utilized just as often for prosocial and social bonding functions, as it is for antisocial purposes. Future studies should focus on theoretical and experimental investigations which explore interactions between deceptive and honest language use in the context of social bonding.
Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolu... more Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision-making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information-seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.
Savage et al. make a compelling case, Mehr et al. less so, for social bonding and credible signal... more Savage et al. make a compelling case, Mehr et al. less so, for social bonding and credible signalling, respectively, as the main adaptive function of human musicality. We express general advocacy for the former thesis, highlighting: (1) overlap between the two; (2) direct versus derived biological functions, and (3) aspects of music embedded in cultural evolution, for example, departures from tonality.
Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, Jan 20, 2012
In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists... more In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2006), the world was granted its first exclusive introduction to the steadily growing dating coach and pick-up artist community. Many of its most prominent authorities claim to use insights and information gleaned both through first-hand experience as well as empirical research in evolutionary psychology. One of the industry's most well-respected authorities, the illusionist Erik von Markovik, promotes a three-phase model of human courtship: Attraction, building mutual Comfort and Trust, and Seduction. The following review argues that many of these claims are in fact grounded in solid empirical findings from social, physiological and evolutionary psychology. Two texts which represent much of this literature are critiqued and their implications discussed.
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2020
Evolutionary musicology is a subdiscipline of biomusicology, the study of music from a biological... more Evolutionary musicology is a subdiscipline of biomusicology, the study of music from a biological perspective, which embeds the psychological and physiological mechanisms of human music perception and production in the theory of biological evolution. Evolutionary musicology studies the origin and evolution of music in the human species, encompassing vocal communication and musical behaviors in non-human animal species; behavioral, cognitive, and neurological development of musical processing and skill; cross-cultural human universals in musical capacity and cognitive processing; and archeological evidence to develop hypotheses concerning the evolution of human musical appreciation and music-making.
Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to thei... more Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of "musilanguage" in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language.
Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolu... more Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision-making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information-seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.
Theory of mind, also known as mentalising, meta-representation, second-order intentionality, or m... more Theory of mind, also known as mentalising, meta-representation, second-order intentionality, or mindreading is the ability to attribute and reflect on the mental states of others. A number of investigators have noted that an important relationship exists between child language development and children's understanding of second-order intentionality. However, although the ontogeny of theory of mind has been extensively studied over the past few decades, only recently have we begun to understand more concerning the limits of human mentalising ability in adults. For example, several studies have shown that the limits of mentalising ability for normal adults are consistently placed around fifth-order intentionality (i.e. I believe that you suppose that I imagine that you want me to believe that...), forming a naturally recursive hierarchy which corresponds to increasingly embedded mindreading. Moreover, several psychologists have recently suggested the adult capacity for higher-order intentionality may have played a critical role in the evolution of language, including especially the ability for recursive syntax comprehension and production, according to a cognitive bootstrapping effect. Here, we used the Imposing Memory Task (n = 210 female and 204 male adults) to analyse the association and interaction between higher-order intentionality capacity and performance on a recursive syntax measure. Multiple regression analyses indicated that recursive syntax abilities are lower than mindreading competences below fifth-order, but then reverses at higher values. In addition, a path analysis further suggested intentionality capacity as the likely causal variable. Thus, these results seem to suggest that first-order through fifth-order intentionality is necessary to assist the processing of simpler syntactic structures, but beyond fifth-order intentionality the cognitive scaffolding provided by recursive syntax may be engaged to enable higher-order mentalising. In summary, this may explain in part how and why many modern languages exhibit recursive syntax.
Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species... more Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species. It has been suggested by some commentators that the primary biological function of human language is to deceive and selfishly manipulate social competitors. However, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical literature in favor of the social bonding hypothesis for language function, the ostensible evidence and arguments for the deception hypothesis have not been fully discussed. The following review analyses the evidence and theoretical arguments from human social behavior, comparative animal behavior, and developmental psychology and suggests that deception shows clear signs of a derived function for language. Furthermore, in addition to being used relatively infrequently across most human and non-human animal contexts, deception appears to be utilized just as often for prosocial and social bonding functions, as it is for antisocial purposes. Future studies should focus on theoretical and experimental investigations which explore interactions between deceptive and honest language use in the context of social bonding.
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were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.
were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.