scholarly journals Evolving building blocks of rhythm: How human cognition creates music via cultural transmission

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ravignani ◽  
Bill Thompson ◽  
Thomas Grossi ◽  
Tania Delgado ◽  
Simon Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Frequentist Statistics ◽  
Complementary Techniques ◽  
Random Patterns ◽  
Evolution Of Music

AbstractMusical rhythm, in all its cross-cultural diversity, exhibits several commonalities across world cultures. Traditionally, music research has been split in two fields. Some scientists focused on musicality, namely the human biocognitive predispositions for music, with an emphasis on cross-cultural similarities. Other scholars investigated music, seen as cultural product, focusing on the large variation in world musical cultures. Recent experiments found deep connections between music and musicality, reconciling these opposing views. Here we address the question of how individual cognitive biases affect the process of cultural evolution of music. Data from two experiments is analyzed using two different, complementary techniques. In the experiments, participants hear drumming patterns and imitate them. These patterns are then given to the same or another participant to imitate. The structure of these - initially random - patterns is tracked down to later experimental ‘generations’. Frequentist statistics show how participants’ biases are amplified by cultural transmission, making drumming patterns more structured. Structure is achieved faster than in transmission within, rather than between, participants. A Bayesian model approximates the motif structures participants learned and created. Overall, our data and model show that individual biases for musicality play a central role in shaping cultural transmission of musical rhythm.

scholarly journals Evolving building blocks of rhythm: how human cognition creates music via cultural transmission

2018 ◽  
Vol 1423 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ravignani ◽  
Bill Thompson ◽  
Thomas Grossi ◽  
Tania Delgado ◽  
Simon Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Human Cognition

Music and Language

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
David Temperley
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Specific Interaction ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Linguistic Stress

This review presents a highly selective survey of connections between music and language. I begin by considering some fundamental differences between music and language and some nonspecific similarities that may arise out of more general characteristics of human cognition and communication. I then discuss an important, specific interaction between music and language: the connection between linguistic stress and musical meter. Next, I consider several possible connections that have been widely studied but remain controversial: cross-cultural correlations between linguistic and musical rhythm, effects of musical training on linguistic abilities, and connections in cognitive processing between music and linguistic syntax. Finally, I discuss some parallels regarding the use of repetition in music and language, which until now has been a little-explored topic.

Cultural evolution and cultural psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Human Psychology

Cultural evolution is a branch of the evolutionary sciences which assumes that (i) human cognition and behaviour is shaped not only by genetic inheritance, but also cultural inheritance (also known as social learning), and (ii) this cultural inheritance constitutes a Darwinian evolutionary system that can be analysed and studied using tools borrowed from evolutionary biology. In this chapter I explore the numerous compatibilities between the fields of cultural evolution and cultural psychology, and the potential mutual benefits from their closer alignment. First, understanding the evolutionary context within which human psychology emerged gives added significance to the findings of cultural psychologists, which reinforce the conclusion reached by cultural evolution scholars that humans inhabit a ‘cultural niche’ within which the major means of adaptation to difference environments is cultural, rather than genetic. Hence, we should not be surprised that human psychology shows substantial cross-cultural variation. Second, a focus on cultural transmission pathways, drawing on cultural evolution models and empirical research, can help to explain to the maintenance of, and potential changes in, cultural variation in psychological processes. Evidence from migrants, in particular, points to a mix of vertical, oblique and horizontal cultural transmission that can explain the differential stability of different cultural dimensions. Third, cultural evolutionary methods offer powerful means of testing historical (“macro-evolutionary”) hypotheses put forward by cultural psychologists for the origin of psychological differences. Explanations in terms of means of subsistence, rates of environmental change or pathogen prevalence can be tested using quantitative models and phylogenetic analyses that can be used to reconstruct cultural lineages. Evolutionary considerations also point to potential problems with current cross-country comparisons conducted within cultural psychology, such as the non-independence of data points due to shared cultural history. Finally, I argue that cultural psychology can play a central role in a synthetic evolutionary science of culture, providing valuable links between individual-oriented disciplines such as experimental psychology and neuroscience on the one hand, and society-oriented disciplines such as anthropology, history and sociology on the other, all within an evolutionary framework that provides links to the biological sciences.

scholarly journals Cognitive Biases in Criminal Case Evaluation: A Review of the Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Meterko ◽  
Glinda Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Case Evaluation ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Specific Factors

AbstractPsychological heuristics are an adaptive part of human cognition, helping us operate efficiently in a world full of complex stimuli. However, these mental shortcuts also have the potential to undermine the search for truth in a criminal investigation. We reviewed 30 social science research papers on cognitive biases in criminal case evaluations (i.e., integrating and drawing conclusions based on the totality of the evidence in a criminal case), 18 of which were based on police participants or an examination of police documents. Only two of these police participant studies were done in the USA, with the remainder conducted in various European countries. The studies provide supporting evidence that lay people and law enforcement professionals alike are vulnerable to confirmation bias, and there are other environmental, individual, and case-specific factors that may exacerbate this risk. Six studies described or evaluated the efficacy of intervention strategies, with varying evidence of success. Further research, particularly in the USA, is needed to evaluate different approaches to protect criminal investigations from cognitive biases.

scholarly journals Music perception: No strong evidence to reject innate biases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick E. Savage ◽  
Thomas E. Currie
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Group Performance ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
South American ◽  
Musical Perception ◽  
Indigenous Group ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

McDermott et al. (Nature 535, 547–550; 2016) used a cross-cultural experiment to show that an isolated South American indigenous group, the Tsimane', exhibit indifference to musical dissonance. The study acts as an important counterweight to common beliefs that musical preferences reflect universal, mathematically based harmonic relationships that are biologically determined by low-level perceptual mechanisms. While we applaud their cross-cultural approach, the limited number of populations studied (n=5) makes it difficult to draw strong conclusions about causal processes. In particular, the conclusion that consonance is thus "unlikely to reflect innate biases" seems too strong, as innateness does not require complete universality. Exceptions are always found in any phenomenon as complex as human music. Indeed, our own global analysis of traditional music found dozens of aspects of music that were common cross-culturally, but none that were absolutely universal without exception (Savage et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 8987-8992; 2015). We showed a consistent tendency to avoid dissonance, yet we still found many examples of sustained dissonance in Western and non-Western music (e.g., Eastern European harvest songs, Papua New Guinean lullabies).Such trends and exceptions are not necessarily indicative of the degree of innateness of aspects of music (which, like other domains of culture, likely reflects some combination of nature and nurture). For example, humans and other animals display an innate aversion to bitter and sour foods, but these can be overridden by cultural conventions and developmental experience (Chandrashekar et al. Nature 444, 288-293; 2006). Diversity in musical perception and production could emerge in the context of weak cognitive biases or relaxation in selective pressures (such as the unusual absence of group performance among the Tsimane'). Broader cross-cultural studies of both perception and production of music and other aspects of human behavior (including cultural evolutionary and developmental frameworks) will be needed to clarify the roles of nature and nurture in shaping human diversity.

scholarly journals Distributed Code for Semantic Relations Predicts Neural Similarity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey N. Chiang ◽  
Yujia Peng ◽  
Hongjing Lu ◽  
Keith J. Holyoak ◽  
Martin M. Monti
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Sequential Presentation ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Distributed Representations ◽  
Relational Similarity ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe ability to generate and process semantic relations is central to many aspects of human cognition. Theorists have long debated whether such relations are coded as atomistic links in a semantic network, or as distributed patterns over some core set of abstract relations. The form and content of the conceptual and neural representations of semantic relations remains to be empirically established. The present study combined computational modeling and neuroimaging to investigate the representation and comparison of abstract semantic relations in the brain. By using sequential presentation of verbal analogies, we decoupled the neural activity associated with encoding the representation of the first-order semantic relation between words in a pair from that associated with the second-order comparison of two relations. We tested alternative computational models of relational similarity in order to distinguish between rival accounts of how semantic relations are coded and compared in the brain. Analyses of neural similarity patterns supported the hypothesis that semantic relations are coded, in the parietal cortex, as distributed representations over a pool of abstract relations specified in a theory-based taxonomy. These representations, in turn, provide the immediate inputs to the process of analogical comparison, which draws on a broad frontoparietal network. This study sheds light not only on the form of relation representations but also on their specific content.SignificanceRelations provide basic building blocks for language and thought. For the past half century, cognitive scientists exploring human semantic memory have sought to identify the code for relations. In a neuroimaging paradigm, we tested alternative computational models of relation processing that predict patterns of neural similarity during distinct phases of analogical reasoning. The findings allowed us to draw inferences not only about the form of relation representations, but also about their specific content. The core of these distributed representations is based on a relatively small number of abstract relation types specified in a theory-based taxonomy. This study helps to resolve a longstanding debate concerning the nature of the conceptual and neural code for semantic relations in the mind and brain.

scholarly journals Biotechnology-Derived Chitosans with Non-Random Patterns of Acetylation Differ from Conventional Chitosans in Their Properties and Activities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper Wattjes ◽  
Sruthi Sreekumar ◽  
Anna Niehues ◽  
Tamara Mengoni ◽  
Ana Carina Loureiro Mendes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Activities ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Degree Of Polymerization ◽  
Natural Process ◽  
Solution Properties ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Random Patterns

Chitosans are versatile biopolymers with multiple biological activities and potential applications. They are linear copolymers of glucosamine and N-acetylglucosamine defined by their degree of polymerization (DP), fraction of acetylation (<i>F<sub>A</sub></i>), and pattern of acetylation (PA). Technical chitosans produced chemically from chitin possess defined DP and FA but random PA, while enzymatically produced natural chitosans are likely to have non-random PA. This natural process has not been replicated using biotechnology because chitin de-N-acetylases do not efficiently deacetylate crystalline chitin. Here, we show that such enzymes can partially N-acetylate polyglucosamine in the presence of excess acetate, yielding chitosans with <i>F<sub>A</sub></i> up to 0.7 and an enzyme-dependent non-random PA. The biotech chitosans differ from technical chitosans both in terms of physicochemical and nanoscale solution properties and biological activities. As with synthetic block co-polymers, controlling the distribution of building blocks within the biopolymer chain will open a new dimension of chitosan research and exploitation.

Political Psychology, Cognition, and Foreign Policy Analysis

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerel Rosati ◽  
Colleen E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
The Media

Cognitive psychology highlights the constraints that prevent individuals from acting as utility-maximizing, fully rational decision-makers. These constraints lead people to rely on a regularly occurring set of cognitive mechanisms to simplify the decision-making process. Scholars of foreign policy have drawn from several prominent areas of cognitive psychology to inform their research. One such area looks at the beliefs and belief systems that are the building blocks for most judgments. Researchers have also examined how actors use cognitive biases and heuristics to cope with uncertainty, which is abundant in foreign policy settings. An important set of cognitive mechanisms examined in foreign policy analysis (FPA) relates to judgments about policy risks and costs. In order to make inferences and predictions about behavior concerning voting decision, certain key public influences must be considered. These influences include the role of emotions, political socialization, political sophistication, tolerance of diversity of political views, and the media. The effect of these influences on voting behavior is best understood through theories on the formation of attitudes, beliefs, schema, knowledge structures, and the practice of information processing. The degree to which voting decision is affected by internal processing systems of political information alters the quality of making truly democratic decisions.

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