Music and the Suppression of Truth Evaluation
Previously, I have hypothesized that music is a superstimulus for the perception of non-spontaneous non-conversational speech, where the super-stimulus effect results in the suppression of truth evaluation.
Since then, I have hypothesized that music is a super-stimulus for the glial perception of speech tempo, which is a different kind super-stimulus hypothesis.
However, from my own subjective experience of music, I still have the feeling that music has some interaction with the process of truth evaluation, in a manner that leaves the listener's evaluation of the contents of lyrics in a state of "hypotheticalness".
Based on the assumption that protomusic was a prehistoric form of communication that came into existence before the development of modern human word-based language, there is a simpler explanation of why music would suppress truth evaluation, which is this:
In biology there is the concept of an honest signal, which is a signal where the sender of the signal cannot easily fake the signal in question, and therefore the receiver of the signal can be reasonably confident that the signal is "telling the truth".
In the human case, an example of an honest signal would be crying - where it is rather difficult to convincingly fake crying, and therefore, if we see someone crying, we readily assume that that person is indeed feeling sad.
When it comes to spoken word-based language, the process of creating and sending the "signal" involves conscious choice by the speaker, so it is quite possible for a speaker to say things that are completely false, and in general listeners cannot automatically assume that any speech they hear is the honest truth.
If we further suppose that the process of truth evaluation involves a global change in the listener's brain state, then there is an intrinsic incompatibility between processing "honest" protomusic and processing potentially dishonest spoken language.
This suggests a possible explanation for what I call the Mystery of the Differentness of Song Lyrics.
The Differentness of Song Lyrics
In many ways song lyrics are the same as normal speech or written prose.
For example:
- Song lyrics must be written in a spoken language – typically the native language of both the singer and the listeners.
- Song lyrics must be syntactically correct.
- The semantics of song lyrics are not obviously different to the semantics of normal speech, in the sense that if a fragment of song lyric happened to coincide with a fragment of conversational speech, the meaning would be the same in both cases – subject only to the caveat that the same fragment of speech could have different meanings in different contexts anyway.
There are some specific things that happen in song lyrics which do not happen in normal conversational speech, or even in more formal speech or written prose:
- Rhyming.
- Repetition of sentences.
- Repetition of the beginnings of sentences (ending differently in each case).
- Non-verbal fillers of varying length (non-verbal fillers can happen in conversational speech, but in speech they are usually only very short, ie "um", and not "ooooo-aaa-ooooo-aaa-oooooh" etc).
However, this list of observed differences doesn't fully account for all of the difference between song lyrics and normal spoken language.
In other words, if you try to write song lyrics, as if you were writing normal prose, then even if you include some repetition and rhyming and non-verbal filler, you will still end up writing lyrics that sound "lame" in some way.
Hypothesis: Song Lyrics should assume the suppression of Truth Evaluation in the listener
When a listener listens to normal conversational speech, truth evaluation is fully turned on, because word-based spoken language is potentially dishonest.
As a result, a certain portion of what a speaker says will consist of addressing the likely concerns of the listener regarding the truth of things that the speaker has already said, in effect taking time to justify claims and statements that they have made.
My hypothesis is that the enjoyment of music, as a superstimulus for protomusic, requires the listener to enter a global brain state where truth evavaluation is suppressed.
The consequence of this for song lyrics is that song lyrics should not address the listener's truth evaluation of what has previously been said:
- Listening to music requires the listener to be in a brain state where truth evaluation is not required and not relevant, therefore there is no point addressing any concerns related to truth evaluation.
- Song lyrics can elaborate on what has been already said, in a manner that reflects the overall theme of the song, but, that elaboration should consist of new emotional content, and should not consist of any attempt to justify previous content. Lyrics that attempt to justify or "explain" previous content will just be emotional "dead space", reducing the overall emotionality of the lyrics.
- Including content that addresses the possible truth evaluation of what has been previously said in the lyrics may have the effect of resetting the listener's brain state to one with active truth evaluation, in order to process that content – which undermines the requirement to process the musical quality of music in a brain state where truth evaluation is suppressed.