Harnessed

In Harnessed, cognitive neuroscientist Mark Changizi tries to tackle two tough questions from modern cognitive science: where did language come from, and why are we musical? Like many scientists in either music cognition or the cognitive science of language, Changizi believes language and music skills are closely related. He gives an ecological explanation for the form and structure of language - which he claims follows from the acoustics of solid-state interactions - and argues that musical skills follow from the brain specializing in the acoustics of moving intentional agents. In a way, Changizi argues that music is, to quote Pinker, "cheesecake", that exists because it fits so nicely in the auditory component of social cognition.

The claims themselves are not that bold, but the degree to which Changizi has thought through the implications of his theses is impressive. He correlates the frequencies of natural sounds with those found in language, argues that rhyme is Gestalt-like grouping of sounds that are likely made by identical objects and uses the gait of human movement to explore rhythm and melody. It's this wide exploration that makes the book an exciting read, even if you're not entirely buying the story.

Of course, there are quite a few things lacking. Changizi stresses his idea of "harnessing", which basically means that cultural artifacts take a certain form because they fit well with our brains. This is an implication of what sociobiology called cultural evolution, and which later got rebranded as memetics, and is hardly controversial. However, Changizi argues for the strong case: even a defrozen hominid from the Ice Age should be able to deal with our current surroundings, he writes. This may all work well as long as we're talking about using a microwave or crossing the street, but Harnessed is about music and language skills, both of which are very sensitive to developmental paths. Psychology shows numerous cases of children who have missed out on learning language during a critical window, after which they never mastered the skill. Language may harness some earlier capability of the brain, but that capability is only accessible in a fixed time frame. Furthermore, cultural artifacts may steer the development of the brain in a new direction, once they start harnessing its features - the way rhythmic expectancies in Balkan babies quickly start to diverge from those in eurobeat-raised brains. Changizi's idea of "harnessing" would have matured had he addressed these matters, and it would also have given him the chance to throw in some neuroscience (which I imagine he would have liked to do).

Another problem is that the case for music-as-movement, as Changizi calls it, is pitched as a piece of sales writing. The reader is told of all the wonderful benefits of the author's kinematic model (as the larger class of movement-inspired accounts of music cognition is called) but isn't told of any weak spots. I am no expert in music cognition, but recall that kinematic predictions of the speed of ritardando fit very poorly with actual musical data. Is this still an outstanding issue? What does Changizi think of this? Such questions are missing in Harnessed. In fact, Changizi hardly mentions earlier kinematic models of music cognition.

Still, the book is a worthwhile read. While repetitive at times, Changizi has a clear style of writing and shows how a single, crazy-sounding hypothesis about the origin of music and language, can still be researched in a systematic manner. Harnessed will definitely provide all interested readers with much food for thought.