An integrative computational modelling of music structure apprehension

Pitch centricity belongs to the most ubiquitous features of music. The process of establishing a pitch center is possible thanks to animplicit analysis of the pitch occurrence frequency in sound sequence. This analysis enables the listeners to create more or less successfulexpectations concerning the appearance of a pitch center. The appearance of the pitch center is additionally accompanied by the feelingof resolution or relaxation whereas the appearance of distant pitches in tonal hierarchy triggers tensions or anxiety. As far as we know, ICMPC 13 – APSCOM 5Monday 4 August 2014 5there is nothing similar to pitch centricity in other domains of human cognition as well as in animals’ vocal communication. Thus, pitchcentricity seems to be the unique and species-specific feature of human vocal communication, which suggests its evolutionary origin.Scientists have usually explained an intuitive character and ubiquity of pitch centricity as a result of general principles of cognition. Theaim of the paper is to present another point of view in which pitch centricity is claimed to be the adaptive innovation of vocalcommunication which emerged in the biological evolution of hominines and which is based on an evolutionarily new mental mechanism.It is proposed in the presentation that in the course of hominine evolution the ability of pitch center recognition became an adaptiveinnovation which enabled a more effective social consolidation by means of hierarchically organized pitch sequences. It is also suggestedthat the origin of this ability has its roots in the ‘Baldwin effect’. It means that at the beginning pitch centricity was a cultural inventionproliferated by means of social learning. However, an instinctive recognition of pitch center which emerged accidentally was preferredby the cultural environment as an important source of evolutionary selection. This process led to the proliferation of a predisposition tojoin three previously separate abilities–the implicit recognition of the frequency of pitch occurrence, working memory and the emotionalassessment of predicted stimuli–into a new mental capability which enables people to intuitively recognize a pitch center. As a resultpitch centricity became an innovative tool of vocal communication.