royalsocietypublishing | Musicality can be defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait
based on and constrained by biology and cognition. Music, by contrast,
can be defined as a social and cultural construct based on that very
musicality. One critical challenge is to delineate the constituent
elements of musicality. What biological and cognitive mechanisms are
essential for perceiving, appreciating and making music? Progress in
understanding the evolution of music cognition depends upon adequate
characterization of the constituent mechanisms of musicality and the
extent to which they are present in non-human species. We argue for the
importance of identifying these mechanisms and delineating their
functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective
means of studying them in human and non-human animals. It is virtually
impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole,
but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes
its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity
is an excellent starting point for a research programme aimed at
illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an
autonomous trait.
