Fitch, Tecumseh
ERC Advanced Grant for the METRA research project
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About the project
The human mind loves hierarchical structure. This shows up in linguistic syntax, musical harmony, social structures, and many other domains. Where did this come from, and do animals share it? Although hierarchical cognition is recognized as a key aspect of the human mind, its evolution has remained puzzling and only few parallels in animal communication have been found. METRA's central proposal is that metrical rhythms, as found in speech, music, and dance, represent a simpler kind of hierarchical tree than in syntax: trees built in time. This simpler structure is likely to have parallels in animal cognition and communication.
In METRA, Tecumseh Fitch combines theoretical approaches from music, metrical phonology, and evolutionary biology in a comparative context, and studies not just humans but birds, primates and sea lions. The research draws on five complementary methods: EEG recordings during speech, music, and dance; animal cognition studies; cross-linguistic speech research using electroglottography (EGG); corpus analysis of animal communication alongside human song and poetry; and studies of cross-modal synchronization between vocalization and dynamic visual displays. METRA will catapult scientific understanding of rhythmic cognition to a new level, providing new insights into hierarchical cognition, a central aspect of the human mind.