Found 2064 Hypotheses across 207 Pages (0.009 seconds)
  1. The acoustic properties of a song are positively correlated to behavior contexts cross-culturally.Mehr, Samuel A. - Universality and diversity in human song, 2019 - 2 Variables

    In asking whether or not there are meaningful universals in music, researchers compiled two catalogs – the Natural History of Song (NHS) Ethnography which contains ethnographic descriptions of song performances collected from eHRAF World Cultures, and the NHS Discography, which contains field recordings of performances of dance, healing, love, and lullaby. Using these two corpora, the study tests a variety of hypotheses about the universality and variability of both music behavior and music form. Specifically, whether there are meaningful universals in meaning and sound. The catalog of published sound recordings was analyzed by machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions, which revealed that there were identifiable features of songs which could then predict their primary function cross-culturally. The results as a whole revealed that the existence of music is a cultural universal, and that the variation within music can be characterized by three factors assessing the formality, arousal, and religiosity of the song events. They also found that musical behavior varies more within societies than between them.

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  2. There is a positive relationship between song type and location within a 3d space (with x,y,z axes of formality, religiosity, and arousal).Mehr, Samuel A. - Universality and diversity in human song, 2019 - 1 Variables

    In asking whether or not there are meaningful universals in music, researchers compiled two catalogs – the Natural History of Song (NHS) Ethnography which contains ethnographic descriptions of song performances collected from eHRAF World Cultures, and the NHS Discography, which contains field recordings of performances of dance, healing, love, and lullaby. Using these two corpora, the study tests a variety of hypotheses about the universality and variability of both music behavior and music form. Specifically, whether there are meaningful universals in meaning and sound. The catalog of published sound recordings was analyzed by machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions, which revealed that there were identifiable features of songs which could then predict their primary function cross-culturally. The results as a whole revealed that the existence of music is a cultural universal, and that the variation within music can be characterized by three factors assessing the formality, arousal, and religiosity of the song events. They also found that musical behavior varies more within societies than between them.

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  3. Music is universal.Mehr, Samuel A. - Universality and diversity in human song, 2019 - 0 Variables

    In asking whether or not there are meaningful universals in music, researchers compiled two catalogs – the Natural History of Song (NHS) Ethnography which contains ethnographic descriptions of song performances collected from eHRAF World Cultures, and the NHS Discography, which contains field recordings of performances of dance, healing, love, and lullaby. Using these two corpora, the study tests a variety of hypotheses about the universality and variability of both music behavior and music form. Specifically, whether there are meaningful universals in meaning and sound. The catalog of published sound recordings was analyzed by machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions, which revealed that there were identifiable features of songs which could then predict their primary function cross-culturally. The results as a whole revealed that the existence of music is a cultural universal, and that the variation within music can be characterized by three factors assessing the formality, arousal, and religiosity of the song events. They also found that musical behavior varies more within societies than between them.

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  4. A song's melodic complexity predicts its context.Mehr, Samuel A. - Universality and diversity in human song, 2019 - 2 Variables

    In asking whether or not there are meaningful universals in music, researchers compiled two catalogs – the Natural History of Song (NHS) Ethnography which contains ethnographic descriptions of song performances collected from eHRAF World Cultures, and the NHS Discography, which contains field recordings of performances of dance, healing, love, and lullaby. Using these two corpora, the study tests a variety of hypotheses about the universality and variability of both music behavior and music form. Specifically, whether there are meaningful universals in meaning and sound. The catalog of published sound recordings was analyzed by machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions, which revealed that there were identifiable features of songs which could then predict their primary function cross-culturally. The results as a whole revealed that the existence of music is a cultural universal, and that the variation within music can be characterized by three factors assessing the formality, arousal, and religiosity of the song events. They also found that musical behavior varies more within societies than between them.

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  5. Similar patterns of song variations (within the categories of formality, arousal, and religiosity) can be applied to all societies.Mehr, Samuel A. - Universality and diversity in human song, 2019 - 0 Variables

    In asking whether or not there are meaningful universals in music, researchers compiled two catalogs – the Natural History of Song (NHS) Ethnography which contains ethnographic descriptions of song performances collected from eHRAF World Cultures, and the NHS Discography, which contains field recordings of performances of dance, healing, love, and lullaby. Using these two corpora, the study tests a variety of hypotheses about the universality and variability of both music behavior and music form. Specifically, whether there are meaningful universals in meaning and sound. The catalog of published sound recordings was analyzed by machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions, which revealed that there were identifiable features of songs which could then predict their primary function cross-culturally. The results as a whole revealed that the existence of music is a cultural universal, and that the variation within music can be characterized by three factors assessing the formality, arousal, and religiosity of the song events. They also found that musical behavior varies more within societies than between them.

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  6. Contextual and musical features will aid people in accurately identifying song functions.Mehr, Samuel A. - Form and Function in Human Song, 2018 - 3 Variables

    The present research investigates the theory of universality in form and function in human song in a sample of people from 60 countries listening to music from 86 mainly small-scale societies. The aims are to document whether people 1) identify the social function of a song solely on form, 2) demonstrate form-function inferences, 3) use contextual aspects to distinguish song functions, and 4) use musical features to differentiate song functions. The authors claim support for the universal perception of song form-function in music listeners.

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  7. People will identify song functions solely from form. Additionally, individuals will make comparable inferences to others.Mehr, Samuel A. - Form and Function in Human Song, 2018 - 2 Variables

    The present research investigates the theory of universality in form and function in human song in a sample of people from 60 countries listening to music from 86 mainly small-scale societies. The aims are to document whether people 1) identify the social function of a song solely on form, 2) demonstrate form-function inferences, 3) use contextual aspects to distinguish song functions, and 4) use musical features to differentiate song functions. The authors claim support for the universal perception of song form-function in music listeners.

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  8. Warfare will predict magio-religious practitioner type.Winkelman, Michael J. - An ethnological analogy and biogenetic model for interpretation of religion ..., 2022 - 2 Variables

    Expanding on the author’s previous findings, this article examines the social and economic variables that may explain the cultural evolution of religious practitioners. With a 47 society sample, the author found that subsistence activities and socio-political conditions predict magico-religious practitioner types (sorcerers/witches, priests, shamanistic healers, mediums, healers, shaman/healers, and shamans) with the strongest results being from subsistence and political organization. He then used these findings to theorize about the biogenetic bases of religion in societies.

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  9. "Community pattern (archaeologically defined) . . . can help predict [these] sociocultural traits: communal or private real estate, shared or hoarded goods, property at death destroyed or inherited, craftsmen, extent of trade, taxes, coercive power, kin-based community or larger, law, political hierarchy, army, religion or magic, ethical supernatural, complex supernatural, spirits or gods, shamans or priests, religious hierarchy, individual or common ritual, group ceremony frequency, simple or elaborate funerals" (197-200)McNett, Charles W., Jr. - A cross-cultural method for predicting nonmaterial traits in archeology, 1970 - 21 Variables

    "This paper presents an exploratory attempt to solve the problem of how to infer traits for which no direct material evidence remains." The author suggests that the archeologically defined community pattern can predict several sociocultural traits. Results support this hypothesis.

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  10. Population size will have an influence on cultural complexity as measured by the number of narrative motifs in folk tales of magicAcerbi, Alberto - Cultural complexity and demography: The case of folktakes, 2017 - 2 Variables

    Acerbi, Kendal, and Tehrani examine the relationship between population size and cultural complexity as measured by a non-technological cultural domain: folktales. Three measures of complexity for folktales are analyzed, 1) number of tale types, 2) number of narrative motifs, and 3) number of traits in variants of two international folktales. Findings suggest that the relationship between cultural complexity and population may depend on the domain, as different domains vary in cultural maintenance and transmission.

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