O ewolucyjnych źródłach niektórych muzycznych preferencji estetycznych

Human musical aesthetic preferences differ significantly. People vary in this respect depending on culture in which they were brought up and on their individual experiences. The awareness of this differentiation was one of the reasons for which these aesthetic preferences were considered as conditioned only by culture. After cognitive science became interested in art, the aesthetic preferences have been explained by seeing the aesthetic assessment of stimuli as related to the evolutionary sources of human aesthetic tendencies. The contemporary knowledge of music processing by the nervous system and of musical skills development indicates that there are also some ubiquitous tendencies in the aesthetic assessment of music. The purpose of the current paper is to present preferences for tonal music and to explain their origin.