Affect Bursts as Evolutionary Precursors of Speech and Music

Abstract

Most evolutionary science studies the development of morphological changes between and within species, focusing on the fossil records. The development of behavioural changes receives much less attention, possibly because of the relative lack of historical behavioural records. However, it was the father of evolutionary science himself, Charles Darwin, who started the enquiry into the evolution of behaviour when he published The expression of the emotion in man and animals in 1872. This was probably the most important pioneering work in this area, not only for the study of emotional expression, but for theory and research on emotion in general. Indeed, this book has catapulted the subject of emotion into the forefront of academic interest and made it a topic for interdisciplinary investigation in its own right.