Marin Manuela M, Rathgeber Ines
Department of Cognition, Emotion and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Front Psychol. 2022 Aug 25;13:971988. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.971988. eCollection 2022.
A number of theories about the origins of musicality have incorporated biological and social perspectives. Darwin argued that musicality evolved by sexual selection, functioning as a courtship display in reproductive partner choice. Darwin did not regard musicality as a sexually dimorphic trait, paralleling evidence that both sexes produce and enjoy music. A novel research strand examines the effect of musicality on sexual attraction by acknowledging the importance of facial attractiveness. We previously demonstrated that music varying in emotional content increases the perceived attractiveness and dating desirability of opposite-sex faces only in females, compared to a silent control condition. Here, we built upon this approach by presenting the person depicted (target) as the performer of the music (prime), thus establishing a direct link. We hypothesized that musical priming would increase sexual attraction, with high-arousing music inducing the largest effect. Musical primes (25 s, piano solo music) varied in arousal and pleasantness, and targets were photos of other-sex faces of average attractiveness and with neutral expressions (2 s). Participants were 35 females and 23 males (heterosexual psychology students, single, and no hormonal contraception use) matched for musical background, mood, and liking for the music used in the experiment. After musical priming, females' ratings of attractiveness and dating desirability increased significantly. In males, only dating desirability was significantly increased by musical priming. No specific effects of music-induced pleasantness and arousal were observed. Our results, together with other recent empirical evidence, corroborate the sexual selection hypothesis for the evolution of human musicality.
关于音乐能力起源的一些理论融合了生物学和社会学观点。达尔文认为，音乐能力是通过性选择进化而来的，在选择生殖伴侣时起着求偶展示的作用。达尔文并不认为音乐能力是一种两性异形的特征，这与两性都能创作并欣赏音乐的证据相呼应。一个新的研究方向通过认识到面部吸引力的重要性，来探究音乐能力对性吸引力的影响。我们之前证明，与无声对照条件相比，情感内容不同的音乐只会增加女性对异性面孔的感知吸引力和约会意愿。在此，我们基于这种方法，将所描绘的人（目标）呈现为音乐的表演者（启动刺激），从而建立直接联系。我们假设音乐启动会增加性吸引力，高唤醒度的音乐产生的效果最大。音乐启动刺激（25秒，钢琴独奏音乐）在唤醒度和愉悦度上有所不同，目标是平均吸引力且表情中性的异性面孔照片（2秒）。参与者为35名女性和23名男性（异性恋心理学专业学生，单身，未使用激素避孕），他们在音乐背景、情绪和对实验中使用的音乐的喜好方面相匹配。经过音乐启动后，女性对吸引力和约会意愿的评分显著增加。在男性中，只有约会意愿因音乐启动而显著增加。未观察到音乐引起的愉悦度和唤醒度的特定影响。我们的结果与其他近期的实证证据一起，证实了人类音乐能力进化的性选择假说。
