Evolution
No description yet. This curated deck is ready for daily study.
Card preview (15)
Define EVOLUTION
The way in which inherited characteristics of of a population of organisms change over time
Define NATURAL SELECTION
How individuals with different inherited characteristics differ in their propensity to survive and reproduce
Define EXAPTION; how can we determine if a trait is exapted?
• When a biological trait originally evolved for a separate purpose to how it is adopted now • Examining common ancestors and comparing characteristics and adaptive functions
Give an example of an exapted function of pitch perception
Vocalisations used by primates and many other animals, i.e., danger calls, mating displays etc
Define CONVERGENT ADAPTATION
Where two unrelated organisms by chance develop the same adaptation
Define BEAT PERCEPTION
The ability to identify and entrain to an underlying isochronous beat (regular pulse/metre)
What is VOCAL LEARNING; what biological mechanisms does it involve?
• Learning to produce vocal signals from auditory experience and sensory feedback • Requires specialised neural circuitry connecting regions of the brain involved in processing metric and auditory information
Give two ways in which music may have adapted for social functions
• Social bonding occurs from group rhythmic entrainment - Emotional cues shared with language that helps communicate an individual’s feelings to the group
What is AUDITORY STREAM ANALYSIS and why is it evolutionarily beneficial?
• Ability to separate the soundscape into multiple perceptual streams • Easier to understand/untangle auditory environments to detect prey/predators
What is MUSICAL SYNTAX?; why is this theory difficult to evidence?
• Musical structures are organised into sequential and hierarchical groups which require complex cognitive processing to understand • Other species haven’t the same complex language to compare against
Explain the AUDITORY CHEESECAKE hypothesis
• Music has no evolutionary function, it merely ‘tickles the pleasure centres in our brain’ by stimulating the complex processing systems used for other means • Brain rewards itself for doing a task
What are the 4 ways music is involved in emotional processing? Explain each
• Simulation: listen to others and learn from their mistakes • Pleasurable compassion theory: reciprocal altruism, building kinship • Social surrogacy: simulation of a virtual person with contingent emotions to a comforting/consoling effect (RELATING to the music) • Distraction: distract from present emotion with supplementary emotion
Explain SEXUAL SELECTION; what is the main issue with this theory?
• Sexual attraction induced by musical skill - Lack of sexual dimorphism in humans (other than culturally inscribed notions of gender)
How might musical CREDIBLE SIGNALLING be evolutionary beneficial?
• Group musicking communicates group strength, size and coordination as a threat to outsiders • Lullabies signal parental proximity, building emotional bond between parent and offspring
Define CREDIBLE SIGNALLING
A communicative event that cannot be deceptive by virtue of its nature, i.e., using a vocalisation to make someone aware of your presence is credible because you have to be physically present to make the sound