Prenatal behavioural and biochemical emotional communication and the origins of music

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Prenatal behavioural and biochemical emotional
communicationand the origins of music

• Richard Parncutt
• Department of Musicology, University of Graz,
  Austria
• Presented at Evolution of Emotional Communication
  
• (EEC 2007), Hannover, Germany, 27-29 September
  2007

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Question

• How does music induce emotion? (Juslin)
• Hypothesis
• Music is a byproduct of prenatal
• auditory, vestibular and proprioceptive function

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A theoretical paper

• idea and argument
• reference to diverse disciplines
• ethnomusicology, historical musicology
• psychology, sociology
• physiology, medicine, gynecology, pediatrics
• acoustics, psychoacoustics, audiology
• zoology, ethology

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Literature example

• Hopkins Johnson (Eds.) (2005)
• Prenatal development of postnatal functions
• Pallas
• Pre- and postnatal sensory experience shapes
  functional architecture in the brain
• Lecanuet, Granier-Deferre, DeCasper
• Are we expecting too much from prenatal
  experiences?
• Schaal
• From amnion to colostrum in milk Odor bridging
  in early developmental transitions
• Porter, Winberg, Varendi
• Prenatal preparation for early postnatal
  olfactory learning
• Robinson, Kleven
• Learning to move before birth
• de Vries, Hopkins
• Fetal movements and postures What do they mean
  for postnatal development?
• Glover, OConnor
• Effects of antenatal maternal stress and anxiety
  From fetus to child

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Ecological approach

• Perception depends primarily on interaction with
  environmental affordances (Gibson)
• does not contradict cognitive approaches
• appropriate if no reflective consciousness

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Music and emotion

• 1. Strong emotions assoc. with survival and
  reproduction (evolutionary psychology Buss)
• hunger, anger, fear
• sexual arousal, love, jealousy
• 2. Music evokes strong emotions (Sloboda
  Gabrielsson)
• 3. But music is unnecessary for survival
  reproduction (Pinker)
• art is by definition non-functional
• ...although music may enhance fitness
• through social relationships

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The mystery of musics origins

• Why does music evoke strong emotions
• although it has no clear adaptive value?

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Association music?emotion

• Musical emotions may be
• ...carried by learned sound movement patterns
• nostalgia (episodic memory, Theyre playing our
  song)
• youth culture and identity
• ...based on motherese
• universal emotional-gestural vocabulary?
  (Papousek)
• nature or nurture? (Trehub)

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Ontogeny of auditory, vestibular and
proprioceptive function

• The following emerge near the middle of
  gestation
• 1. Audition
• physiological and behavioral evidence (Hepper,
  Lecanuet...)
• 2. Vestibular sense
• semicircular canals (rotation)
• otoliths (linear acceleration)
• evidence is only physiological
• 3. Motor control and proprioception
• (Smotherman Robinson)

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The prenatal stage as a developmental niche

• Adaptive pressure
• prenatal survival
• postnatal survival
• Transnatal (dis-) continuity
• Nature, nurture or prenatal development?
  (Smotherman)

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Infant mortality and bonding

• Infant mortality gt 50 in hunter-gatherer
  societies
• ? anything that promotes infant survival is
  selected
• Bonding, attachment (Trevarthen)
• mutual sensitivity to physical/emotional state
• pre- and postnatal

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Prenatal information about maternal state

• biochemical
• changing hormone concentrations
• quickly pass placenta and brain-blood barrier
• behavioural
• patterns of sound and movement
• perceptible after 20 weeks

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Prenatal behavioral communication

• Internal maternal sound and movement patterns
• vocalization
• respiration
• circulation
• impacts (footsteps)
• movement
• digestion
• All depend on maternal (emotional) state

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Prenatal biochemical communication

• Hormone concentrations in maternal blood reflect
  physical and emotional state
• adrenaline (epinephrine), adrenocorticotrophic
  hormone ACTH, aldosterone, corticosteroids,
  corticotrophin-releasing hormone CRH, cortisol,
  dopamine, endorphins, glucocorticoids, insulin,
  melatonin, mineralicorticoids, noradrenaline
  (norepinephrine), oestrogen, oxytocin, prolactin,
  serotonin, testosterone, thyrosine
• a complex, redundant signal (like music)

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Possible mechanism hypothalmus-pituitary axis

• maternal stress/anxiety
• ?
• increased maternal CRH
• increased fetal cortisol
• reduced uterine blood flow
• ?
• congenital abnormalities
• preterm labor
• behavioral problems
• (Glover OConnor)

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A 3-stage model of musics origin
stage phylogenesis phylogenesis ontogenesis
prenatal classical conditioning prenatal audition 107 108 years ago 20 weeks gestation
postnatal operant conditioning walk big brain ?altriciality ?motherese 106 107 years ago birth
reflective consciousness cultural explosion 105 years ago 1-3 years
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Prenatal conditioning

• Emotion is defined as response to change.
• Regular everyday temporal sequence of changes
• maternal physiology
• environment (external event)
• maternal state
• fetal perception
• internal sound and movement patterns
• hormone levels
• Many repetitions of similar patterns over 4
  months
• must the fetus be awake?

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Prenatal associations between sound, movement and
emotion

• are presumably strong due to
• prenatal dominance of audition
• survival value of prenatal communication

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Music and the mother schema

• Infant schema cuteness (Lorenz)
• cognitive representation of infant
• perceived by mother / adults
• ...but bonding is a two-way interaction!
• Mother schema voice, smell, breast, motherese
• cognitive representation of mother
• perceived by fetus / infant
• first schema in life
• primary environmental object
• basis of musics personal and spiritual
  properties?

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Evidence

• Early parent-offspring conflict (Haig)
• placenta hormonally manipulates nutrient supply
• Prenatal learning (Hepper, Smotherman)
• exposure, habituation, conditioning
• human and non-human data
• chemosensory (Schaal Porter) auditory
  (Decasper Fifer)
• function perinatal bonding
• Infant sensitivity to music (Trehub)
• nature or nurture?

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Postnatal operant conditioning

• Quasi-random behaviors
• in motherese, play and ritual
• produce sound/movement patterns
• evoke prenatally established associations
• These behaviors are reinforced
• their frequency of occurrence increases

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Transnatal implicit memory

• Duration in empirical studies
• 5 weeks (Granier-Deferr Hepper)
• long enough to influence motherese
• Protomusic in motherese, play, ritual
• reinforces associations
• distorts associations

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Real music

• Protomusic became music 35-100 kya
• with reflective consciousness (Noble Davidson)
• during cultural explosion (Mithen)

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Prediction (1)

• Prenatally hearing animals e.g.
• primates
• sheep, goats
• guinea pigs
• whales, seals, walrus?
• ...should...
• associate prenatal sound?movement?emotion
• imitate complex sound movement patterns
  (Merker)

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Prediction (2)

• Ultrasound images of fetal face
• in 3rd trimester (Kurjak)
• should in part reflect
• maternal emotional state

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Conclusion (1)

• A theory of music as a
• byproduct of prenatal auditory-vestibular-proprioc
  eptive function and bonding
• is consistent with musics
• universality
• emotional power
• structures (rhythmic, melodic, harmonic)
• specific universal characteristics
• individual, social
• personal, spiritual, religious
• pain reducing, healing, entrancing

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Conclusion (2)

• Prenatal byproduct theory is complementary to
  other theories of musics origins such as
• extended vocalisation (Sachs, Wallin...)
• playful imitation (Cazden, Dissanayake,
  Tolbert...)
• cognitive-motor training (Roederer)
• social glue (Cross, Huron...)
• no contradiction
• clearer separation of origin and function

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Conclusion (3)

• Prenatal conditioning may represent
• the ultimate origin of music
• but may not explain individual differences
• in music behaviors and abilities