[ExI] Music and cognition [was: LA Times - Singing and health}

[PJ Manney]

[Grrr!  I thought I sent this email a month ago to the list.  My
emailer sent it directly to Thomas instead.  I don't know why it does
that!  I have finally changed email systems to gmail...  :-<  But it
does give me an opportunity to put down another thought...]

Thomas wrote:
> From the Times article: "At least one cognitive scientist, Steven
>Pinker, is skeptical of a primal human need for music. Instead, he sees
>music and singing as a kind of linguistic dessert — delicious but not
>necessary. In his 1997 book, 'How the Mind Works,' he wrote, 'I suspect
>music is auditory cheesecake.'"
>
>I see Pinker has contributed a good deal in the field of EP. In my
>opinion the "linguistic" aspect of music accounts for a small fraction
>of its significance. Music has the virtue of arousing and allowing us to
>express inarticulate emotions of joy, hilarity, loss, longing, etc. When
>it comes to voicing deep emotion, the lyrics alone cannot satisfy the
>way a simple sustained vowel sound does. I wonder if Pinker has done
>much singing. -- Thomas Oliver (the songmaker)

I agree.  Pinker is tone-deaf.

Certainly, the neuro-musical work done recently has demonstrated that
musical sound is a separate and often overriding issue in the brain to
words, although there is some interesting neural overlap. And when you
see Levitin's references to fMRI experiments and theories where
musical concepts like timber, rhythm, and 'groove' are linked to our
brain's auditory response to both novelty and danger (think avoiding
predators and finding prey -- the auditory startle is the fastest
perceptual response, etc.), you see that music goes to and stimulates
places in the brain that words don't begin to. We're talking directly
to the cerebellum and amygdala here -- timing, movement and emotions.
Not just the cortex. That's what I think Pinker is missing, although
you could argue those parts we've adapted to use may not have been for
music in the first place, but certainly, music making, even if it was
clapping and vocalizing, is an extremely ancient practice and we had
the right spots in the brain developed sufficiently to use it
immediately and constructively to our benefit.

Hey, even primates like to bang and make noise with stuff. Although I
have yet to hear a chimp play even the iconic chords of "Smoke on the
Water" or "Stairway to Heaven" on a guitar. When they do, we will know
their uplift is complete.  ;-)

Levitin's further argument against "auditory cheesecake" covers music
in sexual selection among other animals, creativity as trumping wealth
for sexual selection in humans (aka the Rock Star theory), length of
time of music in human history, the correlation of musicality and
sociability, how we learn language (our aural verbal patterning is not
dissimilar to musical patterning), the natural musicality of
mother-child interactions, and he even throws in the mirror neuron
argument -- music as an empathetic vehicle -- as the cherry on top,
which Thomas refers to in his second paragraph.

I have another, and in my mind, equally valid reason that Levitin did
not mention.  If one assumes that the way a human processes
information is key to both their survival and identity, and NOT
cognitive cheesecake, then music must not be some extra we just picked
up and enjoyed along the way.  Some people process all their input
musically.  It is as effective a cognitive matrix as the verbal,
visual, kinetic, etc.  (I am not arguing specifically for Gardner's
multiple intelligences per se, as much as acknowledging that
information is processed in different ways in different people.)
People like my daughter and Ben Goertzel (pardon me, Ben, for speaking
for you here, but you did put part of our musical conversation in your
blog...), who 'think' in terms of music, are proof music is not
cheesecake.  It's a fundamental part of all our brains, but for them,
it's how they tick.  And like all "fundamentals," it's not unusual
that it's more fundamental in some people than in others.

PJ