Why sing to baby? Because if you don’t, you’ll starve
These days, it’s territory mostly dominated by the likes of Raffi and The Wiggles, but lullabies, play songs, and other music for babies and toddlers may have some deep evolutionary roots, according to a theory paper co-authored by Graduate School of Education doctoral student Samuel Mehr and Assistant Professor of Psychology Max Krasnow. The paper proposes that infant-directed song evolved as a way for parents to signal to children that their needs were being met, while still leaving time for other tasks, such as foraging for food or caring for other offspring. Infant-directed song might have later evolved into the more complex forms of music we hear today. The theory is described in an open-access paper in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. Music is a tricky topic for evolutionary science: It turns up in many cultures around the world in many different contexts, but no one knows why humans are the...