ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Vocal learning as a preadaptation for the evolution of human beat perception and synchronization.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Musical rhythm abilities and risk for developmental speech-language problems and disorders: epidemiological and polygenic associations.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- The rediscovered motor-related area 55b emerges as a core hub of music perception.Communications biology · 2022Pooled it
- Critical Review on the Development and Evolution of Beat Perception.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
- Female Budgerigars Attend Equally to Rhythmic Beat or Repetition, While Humans Prioritize Their Combination.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Humans, but not zebra finches, produce spontaneously isochronous song through the lifespan.iScience · 2026Article
- Genome-wide investigation of prosody perception: Shared genetic influences between speech rhythm, musical rhythm, and reading traits.HGG advances · 2026Article
- Extreme Rhythm Keeping in Long-Range Slow Click Communication of Sperm Whales.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Novel Approach to Inter-Onset-Interval Ratio Uncovers Music-Like Rhythmic Patterns in Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) Warble Song.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Testing sensorimotor timing across age and music experience in a real-world environment.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) can show spontaneous vocal flexibility when exposed to dynamically changing rhythmic sounds.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Unifying the gestural and the vocal in the evolution of culture, the arts, and the brain.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The role of musical pitch in long-distance defensive signaling.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Perceiving temporal structure within and between the senses: A multisensory/crossmodal perspective.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Review
- Sensorimotor synchronization to rhythm in an experienced sea lion rivals that of humans.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The cultural evolution of distortion in music (and other norms of mixed appeal).Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The shared genetic architecture and evolution of human language and musical rhythm.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Rhythm Facilitates Auditory Working Memory via Beta-Band Encoding and Theta-Band Maintenance.Neuroscience bulletin · 2025Article
- Rhythmic Roots: The Adaptive Functions of Vocal Isochrony and Its Role in Human Music and Language Evolution.Psihologijske teme = Psychological themes = Psychological topics · 2025Article
- Neural Correlates of Rhythm in Post-Stroke Aphasia.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Understanding speech in "noise" or free energy minimization in the soundscapes of the anthropocene.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
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Abstract
The human capacity to synchronize movements to an auditory beat is central to musical behaviour and to debates over the evolution of human musicality. Have humans evolved any neural specializations for music processing, or does music rely entirely on brain circuits that evolved for other reasons? The vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis proposes that our ability to move in time with an auditory beat in a precise, predictive and tempo-flexible manner originated in the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning. In the 15 years, since the hypothesis was proposed a variety of studies have supported it. However, one study has provided a significant challenge to the hypothesis. Furthermore, it is increasingly clear that vocal learning is not a binary trait animals have or lack, but varies more continuously across species. In the light of these developments and of recent progress in the neurobiology of beat processing and of vocal learning, the current paper revises the vocal learning hypothesis. It argues that an advanced form of vocal learning acts as a preadaptation for sporadic beat perception and synchronization (BPS), providing intrinsic rewards for predicting the temporal structure of complex acoustic sequences. It further proposes that in humans, mechanisms of gene-culture coevolution transformed this preadaptation into a genuine neural adaptation for sustained BPS. The larger significance of this proposal is that it outlines a hypothesis of cognitive gene-culture coevolution which makes testable predictions for neuroscience, cross-species studies and genetics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.
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