Psychology 149 : Brain & Art I. (The Evolution of Music)
Course syllabus, Fall 2014
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Professor : Yune S. Lee, Ph.D
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Office :
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Phone: 646-0084
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Email : Yune-Sang.lee@dartmouth.edu
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Office Hours: Tuesdays, 10 am- 12 pm
332 Moore Hall
Course Introduction
A series of courses will be offered for the next three terms regarding the relationship
between brain and art. The Brain & Art series will begin by discussing the evolution of
music. Recently, music has been receiving attention in the cognitive neuroscience field
and the neural basis underlying musical processing has come under serious scrutiny.
From a cognitive neuroscience perspective, the musical faculty is an intriguing and
fascinating topic as it involves various cognitive functions such as emotion, perception,
multi-modal integration, neural plasticity, learning, and memory. From an evolutionary
perspective, one may wonder why humans are evolved to possess music? That is, what
is the adaptive function of music? In fact, we do not have a clear answer for this
question. This course will explore the evolution of music although it may be ever
speculative. To this end, we will read and discuss several seminal frameworks. We will
also invite speakers who are currently exploring various ways of the origin of music.
General Information
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Class Time : Monday & Thursday 11:15-12:20
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Location:
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Web page: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~blackboard
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Reading: selected articles will be posted on Blackboard prior to the class
Room 260
Sep 22th (Mon.)
Introduction : Course outline, goal, and assignments
Topic : What is evolution? What are the origins of music? -1
Readings
Sep 25th (Thu.)
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Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man and Selection in
Relation to Sex. (Chapter 4.), London: J. Murray.
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Spencer, H. (1857). “The Origin and Function of Music.”
Fraser’s Magazine 56: 396-408.
Topic : What is evolution? What are the origins of music? -2
Readings
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Stephen, M. (2005). The Singing Neanderthals. Chapters 1-2.
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Wallin, Merker, and Brown (2000). The Origins of Music, MIT
Press, Ch 16 “The musilanguage” Model of Music Evolution
Sep 29th (Mon.) Topic : What is evolution? What are the origins of music? -3
Readings
Oct 2th (Thu)
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Wallascek, R. (1891). On the Origin of Music. Mind 16: 375386.
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Newman, E. (1905). Herbert Spencer and the Origin of
Music. In musical studies, New York : Haskell House Publishers.
P. 189-216.
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Nadel, E. (1930). The Origin of Music. Musical Quarterly 16:
531-46.
Guest speaker: Steven Brown (McMaster University, CA)
Oct 5th (Mon)
Topic : Comparative research on the origin of music -1
Readings
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Hauser M. & McDermott J., (2003). The Evolution of the Music
Faculty: a Comparative Perspective. Nature and Neuroscience.
Jul 6(7):663-8.
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Fitch, W. T. (2006). The Biology and Evolution of Music: A
Comparative Perspective. Cognition 100, 173-215.
Oct 9th (Thu)
Topic : Is music adaptation or ex-adaptation ? -1
Readings
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Justus, T. & Hustler, J. J. (2005). Fundamental issues in the
evolutionary psychology of music: Assessing innateness and
domain specificity. Music Perception, 23, 1-27.
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Cross, I. (1999). Is Music the Most Important thing We Ever
Did? Music, Development and Evolution.” Music, Mind and
Science. Seoul: Seoul National University Press. 10-39.
Oct 12th (Mon)
Topic : Is music adaptation or ex-adaptation ? -2
Readings
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Fitch, W.T (2006). On the Biology and Evolution of Music.
Music perception, 24 (1): 85-88.
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Trainor, L.J. (2006). Innateness, Learning, and the Difficulty of
Determining Whether Music Is an Evolutionary Adaptation.
Music perception, 24(1): 105-110.
Oct 16th (Thu)
Topic : Animal song, is it music?
Readings
Oct 19th (Mon)
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Podos, Huber, and Taft (2004). Bird song : The interface of
Evolution and Mechanism. Annual Review of Ecology,
Evolution, and Systematics.35: 55-87.
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Slater, Peter. (2000). Birdsong Repertoires: The Origins and Use.
In the Origin of Music, Wallin, Merker, and Brown, MIT Press,
31-48.
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Payne, Katharine. (2000). The Progressively Changing Songs of
Humpback Whales: A window in the Creative Process in a Wild
animal.
Topic : Comparative research on the origin of music -2
Readings
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Zentner, M.R. & Kagan, J. (1996). Perception of music by
infants. Nature, 383, 29.
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Trehub, S. E. (2004). Music in infancy. In J. Flohr (Ed.),
Musical lives of young children. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Oct 23th (Thu)
Mid term
Oct 26th (Mon)
No class
I will be out of town to attend the SFN (Society For Neuroscience)
conference.
Oct 30th (Thu)
Topic : Is music universal to humans?
Readings
Nov 3rd (Mon)
Nov 7th(Thu)
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Trainor, L.J. & Trehub, S.E. (1992). A comparison of infants’
and adults’ sensitivity to western musical structure. J.
Exp.psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 18, 394-402.
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Balkwill, L.-L. & Thompson, W.F.(1999). A cross-cultural
investigation of the perception of emotion in music:
Psychophysical and cultural cues. Music Perception. 17, 43-74
Guest speaker : Josh McDermott (University of Minnesota)
Topic: Music and language -1
Readings
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Pinker S. (1997). How the mind works (Nortoh, NewYork). Ch8.
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Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its Nature, Origin,
and Use (Praeger, New York).
Nov 10th(Mon)
Guest speaker : Megan Curtis (Tufts University)
Nov 14th(Thu)
Topic: Music and language -1
Readings
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Patel, A.D. (1998). Syntactic processing in language and music:
different cognitive operations, similar neural resources? Music
Perception. 16, 27-42.
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Ross, D., Choi, J., Purves, D. (2007). Musical intervals in speech.
PNAS. 104: 9852-9857.
Nov 17th(Mon)
Topic : Current research and the future directions
Readings
-
Nov 21th(Thu)
Zatorre, R.J. (2003). Music and the Brain. Ann N Y Acad Sci.
999:1-14.
Student Presentation -1
Nov 24th(Mon) Student Presentation
-2
Nov 28th(Thu) No class
Thanksgiving holidays
Dec 1st (Mon)
Guest speaker : Larry Polansky (Professor at Electro Acoustic
Music department, Dartmouth College)
Dec 4th (Thu) Course debrief and finals.