The evolutionary benefit of less-credible affective musical signals for emotion induction during storytelling

Abstract

The credible signaling theory underexplains the evolutionary added value of less-credible affective musical signals compared to vocal signals. The theory might be extended to account for the motivation for, and consequences of, culturally decontextualizing a biologically contextualized signal. Musical signals are twofold, communicating emotional fiction alongside biological meaning, and could have filled an adaptive need for affect induction during storytelling.