ABSTRACT
TITLE: The Origin of Music and the Evolution of the Octave*Efficient Communication of Spatial Intelligence in Species Inhabiting Spatio-Temporally Demanding Environments
THESIS: The enormous selective pressure for spatial intelligence and an efficient way to communicate this ability provided the main stimulus for the instinctual knowledge and expression of the octave and other simple integer frequency ratios which serve as a foundation for the octave based twelve-tone scale of [western] musical theory.
WHAT: Recent studies in the cognitive psychology of music have exposed a positive effect of musical training on spatio-temporal intelligence. Other studies have similarly shown that musical ability greatly improves understanding of proportional math (the math of ratios). Not surprising, then, are the separate studies showing a link between spatial intelligence and the understanding of proportions (ratios). I hope to show that the strong links between these three abilities are not merely behaviorally causal from musical activity to spatial intelligence (as has been previously shown) but evolutionarily causal from spatial intelligence to musical activity. I plan to argue that the octave (simple integer frequency ratio) based musical expression has evolved through sexual section as a [reliable] indicator of spatial-intelligence.
