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Knowledge songs as an evolutionary adaptation to facilitate information transmission through music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Daniel J. Levitin Open the ORCID record for Daniel J. Levitin [Opens in a new window]
Daniel J. Levitin*
Affiliation:
Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute,San Francisco, CA94103, USAdlevitin@minerva.kgi.edu; www.daniellevitin.com Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada
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Abstract

I propose an adjunct to the two models presented in the target articles, a function of music that is ubiquitous and would have solved a clear adaptive problem, that of transmitting important survival information among pre-literate humans. This class of knowledge songs uniquely preserved cultural, botanical, medical, safety, and practical information that increased the adaptive fitness of societies.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e105
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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