Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32814608›Full record

ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2020

Music as a coevolved system for social bonding.

Patrick E Savage, Psyche Loui, Bronwyn Tarr, Adena Schachner, Luke Glowacki, Steven Mithen, W Tecumseh Fitch

Registry-linked trialAbstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06016621 (A Randomised Controlled Trial on the Effectiveness of Improvisational Music Therapy for Autistic Children Aged 7 - 11 [Autism-CHIME Trial].), which is not on this map. Cited by 195 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
195citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT06016621 narecruitingnot on this mapstarted 2023, after this paper: background citation

A Randomised Controlled Trial on the Effectiveness of Improvisational Music Therapy for Autistic Children Aged 7 - 11 [Autism-CHIME Trial].

TypeinterventionalSponsorProf Simon Baron-CohenRan2023 to 2025Enrolled240ConditionsAutismArmsImprovisational Music Therapy
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

195 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. The Behavioural Economics of Music: Systematic review and future directions.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2023
    Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Trial
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  7. Article
  8. Cortico-striatal network architecture shapes rhythmic biases in music.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026
    Article
  9. Structure of Musical Dislikes: Findings From Multiple Genres and Countries.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026
    Article
  10. Expressing emotions through music.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026
    Review
  11. Article
  12. Critical Review on the Development and Evolution of Beat Perception.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026
    Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Listening to a Consonant Chord Progression during Live Face-to-Face Gaze Enhances Neural Activity in Social Systems.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  16. Article
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  18. Kava consumption and the rise of sociopolitical complexity in Oceania.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

135 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Patrick E SavageFaculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa252-0882, Japanpsavage@sfc.keio.ac.jp; http://PatrickESavage.com.ORCID 0000-0001-6996-7496
Psyche LouiCollege of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, Boston, MA02115, USAp.loui@northeastern.edu; http://www.psycheloui.com.
Bronwyn TarrInstitute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology & Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, OxfordOX2 6PN, UKbronwyn.tarr@anthro.ox.ac.uk; bronwyntarr01@gmail.comhttps://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-bronwyn-tarr.
Adena SchachnerDepartment of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA92093, USA; schachner@ucsd.edu; https://madlab.ucsd.edu.
Luke GlowackiDepartment of Anthropology, Boston University, Boston, MA02215, USAglowacki@fas.harvard.edu; https://www.hsb-lab.org/.
Steven MithenDepartment of Archaeology, University of Reading, ReadingRG6 6AB, UKs.j.mithen@reading.ac.uk; http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/about/staff/s-j-mithen.aspx.
W Tecumseh FitchDepartment of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna1090, Austria. tecumseh.fitch@univie.ac.at; https://homepage.univie.ac.at/tecumseh.fitch/.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archeology, anthropology, biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene-culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution because of their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music.

Indexed as

Cultural EvolutionMusicAnimalsBraincomparativecooperationcultural evolutionharmonylanguagemusicpredictionrewardsynchronyvocal learning

Identifiers

PMID32814608

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.