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W Tecumseh Fitch

Publications and source records attributed to W Tecumseh Fitch.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

The biology and evolution of music: a comparative perspective.

Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this paper, I present a comparative perspective on the biology and evolution of music, stressing the value of comparisons both with human language, and with those animal communication systems traditionally termed "song". A comparison of the "design features" of music with those of language reveals substantial overlap, along with some important differences. Most of these differences appear to stem from semantic, rather than structural, factors, suggesting a shared formal core of music and language. I next review various animal communication systems that appear related to human music, either by analogy (bird and whale "song") or potential homology (great ape bimanual drumming). A crucial comparative distinction is between learned, complex signals (like language, music and birdsong) and unlearned signals (like laughter, ape calls, or bird calls). While human vocalizations clearly build upon an acoustic and emotional foundation shared with other primates and mammals, vocal learning has evolved independently in our species since our divergence with chimpanzees. The convergent evolution of vocal learning in other species offers a powerful window into psychological and neural constraints influencing the evolution of complex signaling systems (including both song and speech), while ape drumming presents a fascinating potential homology with human instrumental music. I next discuss the archeological data relevant to music evolution, concluding on the basis of prehistoric bone flutes that instrumental music is at least 40,000 years old, and perhaps much older. I end with a brief review of adaptive functions proposed for music, concluding that no one selective force (e.g., sexual selection) is adequate to explaining all aspects of human music. I suggest that questions about the past function of music are unlikely to be answered definitively and are thus a poor choice as a research focus for biomusicology. In contrast, a comparative approach to music promises rich dividends for our future understanding of the biology and evolution of music.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2006

Rhesus macaques spontaneously perceive formants in conspecific vocalizations.

We provide a direct demonstration that nonhuman primates spontaneously perceive changes in formant frequencies in their own species-typical vocalizations, without training or reinforcement. Formants are vocal tract resonances leading to distinctive spectral prominences in the vocal signal, and provide the acoustic determinant of many key phonetic distinctions in human languages. We developed algorithms for manipulating formants in rhesus macaque calls. Using the resulting computer-manipulated calls in a habituation/dishabituation paradigm, with blind video scoring, we show that rhesus macaques spontaneously respond to a change in formant frequencies within the normal macaque vocal range. Lack of dishabituation to a "synthetic replica" signal demonstrates that dishabituation was not due to an artificial quality of synthetic calls, but to the formant shift itself. These results indicate that formant perception, a significant component of human voice and speech perception, is a perceptual ability shared with other primates.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

The evolution of the language faculty: clarifications and implications.

In this response to Pinker and Jackendoff's critique, we extend our previous framework for discussion of language evolution, clarifying certain distinctions and elaborating on a number of points. In the first half of the paper, we reiterate that profitable research into the biology and evolution of language requires fractionation of "language" into component mechanisms and interfaces, a non-trivial endeavor whose results are unlikely to map onto traditional disciplinary boundaries. Our terminological distinction between FLN and FLB is intended to help clarify misunderstandings and aid interdisciplinary rapprochement. By blurring this distinction, Pinker and Jackendoff mischaracterize our hypothesis 3 which concerns only FLN, not "language" as a whole. Many of their arguments and examples are thus irrelevant to this hypothesis. Their critique of the minimalist program is for the most part equally irrelevant, because very few of the arguments in our original paper were tied to this program; in an online appendix we detail the deep inaccuracies in their characterization of this program. Concerning evolution, we believe that Pinker and Jackendoff's emphasis on the past adaptive history of the language faculty is misplaced. Such questions are unlikely to be resolved empirically due to a lack of relevant data, and invite speculation rather than research. Preoccupation with the issue has retarded progress in the field by diverting research away from empirical questions, many of which can be addressed with comparative data. Moreover, offering an adaptive hypothesis as an alternative to our hypothesis concerning mechanisms is a logical error, as questions of function are independent of those concerning mechanism. The second half of our paper consists of a detailed response to the specific data discussed by Pinker and Jackendoff. Although many of their examples are irrelevant to our original paper and arguments, we find several areas of substantive disagreement that could be resolved by future empirical research. We conclude that progress in understanding the evolution of language will require much more empirical research, grounded in modern comparative biology, more interdisciplinary collaboration, and much less of the adaptive storytelling and phylogenetic speculation that has traditionally characterized the field.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed2005

Red deer stags use formants as assessment cues during intrasexual agonistic interactions.

While vocal tract resonances or formants are key acoustic parameters that define differences between phonemes in human speech, little is known about their function in animal communication. Here, we used playback experiments to present red deer stags with re-synthesized vocalizations in which formant frequencies were systematically altered to simulate callers of different body sizes. In response to stimuli where lower formants indicated callers with longer vocal tracts, stags were more attentive, replied with more roars and extended their vocal tracts further in these replies. Our results indicate that mammals other than humans use formants in vital vocal exchanges and can adjust their own formant frequencies in relation to those that they hear.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

Using mathematical models of language experimentally.

Understanding developmental and evolutionary aspects of the language faculty requires comparing adult languages users' abilities with those of non-verbal subjects, such as babies and non-human animals. Classically, comparative work in this area has relied on the rich theoretical frameworks developed by linguists in the generative grammar tradition. However, the great variety of generative theories and the fact that they are models of language specifically makes it difficult to know what to test in animals and children lacking the expressive abilities of normal, mature adults. We suggest that this problem can be mitigated by tapping equally rich, but more formal mathematical approaches to language.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed2005

The evolution of music in comparative perspective.

In this paper, I briefly review some comparative data that provide an empirical basis for research on the evolution of music making in humans. First, a brief comparison of music and language leads to discussion of design features of music, suggesting a deep connection between the biology of music and language. I then selectively review data on animal "music." Examining sound production in animals, we find examples of repeated convergent evolution or analogy (the evolution of vocal learning of complex songs in birds, whales, and seals). A fascinating but overlooked potential homology to instrumental music is provided by manual percussion in African apes. Such comparative behavioral data, combined with neuroscientific and developmental data, provide an important starting point for any hypothesis about how or why human music evolved. Regarding these functional and phylogenetic questions, I discuss some previously proposed functions of music, including Pinker's "cheesecake" hypothesis; Darwin's and others' sexual selection model; Dunbar's group "grooming" hypothesis; and Trehub's caregiving model. I conclude that only the last hypothesis receives strong support from currently available data. I end with a brief synopsis of Darwin's model of a songlike musical "protolanguage," concluding that Darwin's model is consistent with much of the available evidence concerning the evolution of both music and language. There is a rich future for empirical investigations of the evolution of music, both in investigations of individual differences among humans, and in interspecific investigations of musical abilities in other animals, especially those of our ape cousins, about which we know little.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate.

The capacity to generate a limitless range of meaningful expressions from a finite set of elements differentiates human language from other animal communication systems. Rule systems capable of generating an infinite set of outputs ("grammars") vary in generative power. The weakest possess only local organizational principles, with regularities limited to neighboring units. We used a familiarization/discrimination paradigm to demonstrate that monkeys can spontaneously master such grammars. However, human language entails more sophisticated grammars, incorporating hierarchical structure. Monkeys tested with the same methods, syllables, and sequence lengths were unable to master a grammar at this higher, "phrase structure grammar" level.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?

We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB) and in the narrow sense (FLN). FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2002

Motion events in language and cognition.

This study investigated whether different lexicalization patterns of motion events in English and Spanish predict how speakers of these languages perform in non-linguistic tasks. Using 36 motion events, we compared English and Spanish speakers' linguistic descriptions to their performance on two non-linguistic tasks: recognition memory and similarity judgments. We investigated the effect of language processing on non-linguistic performance by varying the nature of the encoding before testing for recognition and similarity. Participants encoded the events while describing them verbally or not. No effect of language was obtained in the recognition memory task after either linguistic or non-linguistic encoding and in the similarity task after non-linguistic encoding. We did find a linguistic effect in the similarity task after verbal encoding, an effect that conformed to language-specific patterns. Linguistic descriptions directed attention to certain aspects of the events later used to make a non-linguistic judgment. This suggests that linguistic and non-linguistic performance are dissociable, but language-specific regularities made available in the experimental context may mediate the speaker's performance in specific tasks.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

A laboratory evaluation of an auditory display designed to enhance intraoperative monitoring.

UNLABELLED: Encouraged by the popularity of the pulse oximeter pulse-tone, we developed and tested an auditory display of six physiologic variables. The display consisted of a cardiovascular sound triggered by every heartbeat (conveying heart rate) and a respiratory sound triggered by every breath (conveying respiratory rate). Attributes of the cardiovascular sound were modulated to convey hemoglobin saturation and blood pressure, and those of the respiratory sound were modulated to denote end-tidal CO(2) and tidal volume. Three display formats (auditory, visual, and combined) were compared. Fourteen anesthesia residents monitored dynamic displays of 6 variables to detect and identify 6 predefined events during 21 trials. An event occurred during each trial and the subject's task was to detect when it started and then identify the type of event. Subjects detected every event. They detected events more rapidly with the combined display (10.4 s) than with the visual (12.8 s) or auditory (13.0 s) displays. Subjects correctly identified events least often with the auditory display (60% versus visual 88% and combined 80%). They correctly identified events more quickly with the combined display than with the visual display. We conclude that, with little training, clinicians can successfully detect and identify simulated clinical events using an auditory display of six variables. IMPLICATIONS: We developed and tested an auditory display of multivariable clinical data. With little training, clinicians successfully used the display to detect and diagnose simulated critical events. This suggests that a multivariable auditory display could enhance intraoperative monitoring.

Adult↗