On my way to work today, listening to WPR (Wisconsin Public Radio), they had on the
program,
Charles Snowdon. He was speaking about a study he conducted to see how primates reacted to different genres of music, specifically,
cotton-top tamarins
News of the study can be found here
The main focus of the study was to how that an affinity for music is a natural one. We all have an ear for certain types of sound. The reason for using monkeys in the study was because humans can are generally predisposed to a certain type of music, whereas these tamarins had not been privvy to any music at all, therefor would be better for a blind study.
One thing that was brought up during the discussion, was why certain types of music elicit certain responses in us. Example: tones with a descending, long drawn out vibrato (I think that's the term) calm us down; where as, fast, upbeat music will generally make us upbeat/more aware.
He did come to the conclusion that the monkeys in question were practically immune to human music (except for Metallica and Grudge: it actually calmed them down, ironically, due to the beat being almost identical to their resting heartrate). But of the "monkey music" they composed, similar tempos elicited the same responses as in Humans.
My question is this (it was brought up during the discussion, but i wasn't satisfied with the answer): how did we evolve with this ear for certain types of sounds? What possible advantage could our response to these sounds be?
A couple of answers Mr. Snowdon posited was that fast upbeat sounds would have been used to signal an enemy/predator. Where did the long, soothing tones come into play?
Science section please.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.
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-Carl Sagan
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