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Across cultures, aspects of music and dance contribute to everyday life in a variety of ways that do not depend on artistry, aesthetics, or expertise. In this chapter, we focus on precursors to music and dance that are evident in infancy: the underlying perceptual abilities, parent-infant musical interactions that are motivated by nonmusical goals, the consequences of such interactions for mood regulation and social regulation, and the emergence of rudimentary singing and rhythmic movement to music. These precursors to music and dance lay the groundwork for our informal engagement with music throughout life and its continuing effects on mood regulation, affiliation, and well-being., (© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Musically untrained participants in five age groups (5-, 6-, 8-, and 11-year-olds, and adults) heard sequences of three 1 s piano tones in which the first and third tones were identical (A5, or 880 Hz) but the middle tone was displaced upward or downward in pitch. Their task was to identify whether the middle tone was higher or lower than the other two tones. In experiment 1, 5-year-olds successfully identified upward and downward shifts of 4, 2, 1, 0.5, and 0.3 semitones. In experiment 2, older children (6-, 8-, and 11-year-olds) and adults successfully identified the same shifts as well as a smaller shift (0.1 semitone). For all age groups, performance accuracy decreased as the size of the shift decreased. Performance improved from 5 to 8 years of age, reaching adult levels at 8 years.

We evaluated 6- and 7-month-olds' preference and memory for expressive recordings of sung lullabies. In Experiment 1, both age groups preferred lower-pitched to higher-pitched renditions of unfamiliar lullabies. In Experiment 2, infants were tested after 2 weeks of daily exposure to a lullaby at one pitch level. Seven-month-olds listened significantly longer to the lullaby at a novel pitch level than at the original pitch level. Six-month-olds showed no preference but their low-pitch preference was eliminated. We conclude that infants' memory for musical performances is enhanced by the ecological validity of the materials. Moreover, infants' pitch preferences are influenced by their previous exposure and by the nature of the music.

We review the literature on infants' perception of pitch and temporal patterns, relating it to comparable research with human adult and non-human listeners. Although there are parallels in relative pitch processing across age and species, there are notable differences. Infants accomplish such tasks with ease, but non-human listeners require extensive training to achieve very modest levels of performance. In general, human listeners process auditory sequences in a holistic manner, and non-human listeners focus on absolute aspects of individual tones. Temporal grouping processes and categorization on the basis of rhythm are evident in non-human listeners and in human infants and adults. Although synchronization to sound patterns is thought to be uniquely human, tapping to music, synchronous firefly flashing, and other cyclic behaviors can be described by similar mathematical principles. We conclude that infants' music perception skills are a product of general perceptual mechanisms that are neither music- nor species-specific. Along with general-purpose mechanisms for the perceptual foundations of music, we suggest unique motivational mechanisms that can account for the perpetuation of musical behavior in all human societies.

The study of musical abilities and activities in infancy has the potential to shed light on musical biases or dispositions that are rooted in nature rather than nurture. The available evidence indicates that infants are sensitive to a number of sound features that are fundamental to music across cultures. Their discrimination of pitch and timing differences and their perception of equivalence classes are similar, in many respects, to those of listeners who have had many years of exposure to music. Whether these perceptual skills are unique to human listeners is not known. What is unique is the intense human interest in music, which is evident from the early days of life. Also unique is the importance of music in social contexts. Current ideas about musical timing and interpersonal synchrony are considered here, along with proposals for future research.

Responsiveness of 1-, 3-, and 5-year-old children and adults to octave-band noises at .4 and 10 kHz was assessed with a go/no-go version of visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) (Moore, Thompson, & Thompson, 1975) and a two-alternative, forced-choice version (Suzuki & Ogiba, 1961; Trehub, Schneider, & Endman, 1980). Infants performed better on the two-alternative, forced-choice version in quiet and in noisy backgrounds, and adults performed better on the two-alternative, forced-choice version in quiet but not in noisy backgrounds. Performance on the two tasks was essentially equivalent for 3- and 5-year-old children. Superior performance on two-alternative VRA over go/no-go may be due to lesser cognitive demands in the case of infants and to the engagement of superior decision strategies in the case of adults.

Masked thresholds at two signal frequencies (0.8 and 4 kHz) were obtained from listeners aged 6.5 months, 2 years, 5 years, and 20.5 years in the presence of constant spectrum level, narrowband maskers of differing bandwidths. Consistent with the classical results of Fletcher (1940), masked threshold for all age groups increased with bandwidth up to a critical width, beyond which further increases in bandwidth were ineffective in increasing threshold. These critical widths (estimates of critical band size) did not change substantially with age (critical widths for infants were no more than 50% larger than those of adults) despite substantial changes in masked thresholds with age. Thus, contrary to previous claims, changes in auditory filter width cannot account for developmental changes in masked or absolute thresholds.

In the present research we examined the development of sensitivity to two musical relations significant in Western tonal music, the semitone and diatonic structure. Infants and preschool children were tested for their detection of a semitone change in any position of a five-note melody. Two standard melodies were used, one composed of diatonic tones only and the other containing a non-diatonic tone. In Experiment 1, children from 4 to 6 years of age were superior in detecting the semitone change in the diatonic context compared with the nondiatonic context. In Experiment 2, infants 9 to 11 months of age detected the semitone change in all positions, but their performance was not influenced by diatonic context. These findings indicate that infants and children can discriminate a semitone in a musical context and that the priority of diatonic structure emerges by 4 to 6 years of age.

Sensitivity to 1/3-octave-band noises with centre frequencies of 10, 20, and 25 kHz was measured for 200 children between 1.5 and 16 years of age and for 20 young adults. In the case of the 25-kHz signal, listeners of 1.5 and 3 years of age as well as those 16 and 20 years of age were unable to detect it at its highest intensity (57 dB). In contrast, listeners 5-14 years of age could detect the 25-kHz signal. Sensitivity to the 20-kHz signal improved until about 8 years of age, deteriorating gradually thereafter. Finally, sensitivity to the 10-kHz signal improved rapidly, reaching young adult levels by 5 years of age, and remaining stable until 20 years of age. These findings are consistent with the onset of high-frequency hearing losses at around 10 years of age. Whether such hearing losses are due to normal aging (presbyacusis) or to noise exposure (socioacusis) remains to be determined.

Thresholds for octave-band noises with center frequencies of 0.4, 1, 2, 4, and 10 kHz, and 1/3-octave-band noises with center frequencies of 10 and 20 kHz, were obtained from children 3-5 years of age and from a comparison group of adults. Thresholds for all frequencies decreased between 3 and 5 years of age. Thresholds decreased further between 5 years of age and adulthood, except for the 20-kHz stimulus, for which children had lower thresholds than adults. These results are discussed in terms of possible age-related changes in the mechanical properties of the ear and in the efficiency of neural coding.

The discrimination of signal and silence duration was evaluated in 6-month-old infants, 5 1/2-year-old children, and adults. Listeners were tested with a conditioned-discrimination procedure in which they were presented a sequence of 18 white-noise bursts and trained to discriminate a change in duration of the middle 6 signal or silence elements. There were no differential effects on performance for changes in signal compared to silence duration. At each age, performance varied only as a function of magnitude of duration change. Infants discriminated duration changes of 20 ms or greater, children discriminated 15 ms, and adults discriminated changes as small as 10 ms. These findings are consistent with other research in revealing age-related improvements in auditory temporal perception.