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Some animals seem to appreciate music. What does that mean for human evolution?

Ronan sea ​​lion You can dance to a lot of different songs, but there is something about “Boogie Wonderland”, by the ground, wind and fire that make them walk.

It did not take more than a few days for Peter Cook, professor of marine mammal sciences at the New Florida College, to train Ronan at her head music. Using fish as a bonus, its knowledge. Then he taught her to move when he played a metonium. Over the next two months, she gave her a fish every time she conjunished her head to the rhythm of music. He said that once clicked, she can do it 60 times in a row in two days.

Before a long time ago, she was able to do this with music recorded live in a studio with natural fluctuations, complex and synchronous devices, which means that different beats were emphasized in different measures, Cook explained. It was not just the ground, wind and fire that prompted it to move, but also Backstreeet Boys and other rock music songs.

“Once you understand the task, it seemed able to transfer this knowledge to the complex music of stimuli, which has things like the meter,” Cook told Salon in an interview on the phone. “The thing is, we are not sure how they think or understand things like the meter, synthesis, or anything like that.”

Historically, many thought that Humans were the only animals that could Learn an external rhythm and move to it simultaneously. But in 2007, Snowball The Cockatoo Virusi went to Dancing on the rhythm of Back Street. After that, in 2013, Ronan The CC gained a world similar to the rhythm of her head to the rhythm of music.

These two state studies are part of the growing field of research to try to understand animals that have the ability to be musical, which provides evidence of how music develops in humans and why.

In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: “If you imagine, if not enjoyment, musical rhythms and rhythm, it may be common in all animals.” Darwin suggests that if music gives us pleasure, it will have an evolutionary purpose. And if all animals share a common ancestor, this may be an evolutionary common thing. But this is not easy to investigate.

“We have this problem in studying the origins of music … music does not dig,” said Hong Hong, Professor of Music Perception at the University of Amsterdam. “The work of crossed species is a way to solve this problem because the assumption is that if you share a specific feature with genetically close species, the common ancestors may also have this special skill.”

In some way, all animals make rhythms, whether they are in the form of lumps, or the rolling birds, or even the tiger that goes back back and forth. Some of these rhythms are affected by pure physiology: walking, swimming, and the presence of heartbeat is all rhythmic. However, determining what constitutes music represents a challenge because it is subjective by its nature. In addition, we do not know whether animals are suffering from music as music, or if this is our human experience that we show on them.

We do not know whether animals are suffering from music as music, or if this is our human experience that we show on them.

In one Ticket It was released last month, and chimpanzees were observed east and west – two different types – in the wilderness to be distinctive drum patterns. The author of the study, Vista Elliire, who is studying the development of social perception at the University of Vienna, said these patterns are short, organized and rhythmic, but are believed to be used for communication purposes more than music.

“Some chimpanzee drum with isochrony [occurring at the same time]But we did not find evidence of other musical rhythms present in humans. “

Music generally means that animals control the rhythm they make and use them flexible. One way to determine whether the music animal is to know if they have the ability to determine the observation court in relation to other notes. Another way, which has been studied more, is to know if they are able to synchronize with rhythms.


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It has been proven that human children do this before they can walk or speak, although it is unclear whether this ability is learned or innate. Children are not fully synchronized with the rhythm in the microcredit and improve over time, indicating that it can be something socially learning. On the other hand, one 2009 Ticket Evidence of the child’s brains was found that they were discovering the rhythmic patterns of up to seven months, which could indicate that this ability already works at birth.

However, in a Ticket Ronan The Sea Lion was published in May, when a better performance than adults was when they were commissioned to move to synchronization to a rhythm. Although Ronan does not perform this task outside her training sessions on its own, she gets a fish regardless of whether she is moving to music in training sessions, indicating that she is voluntarily moving to the rhythm.

It is unclear what Ronan is motivating to perform this activity, but Cook said that the sea lions are somewhat similar to the boundaries in the sea and can learn new tasks quickly. He explained that the matter may be related to organizing a task.

He said: “I think she has a cognitive challenge and an opportunity to master something and then practice this mastery.” “I don’t know if it is related to the groove as it is with humans.”

Looking at the similarities and differences between our closest living relatives, decisions can provide evidence of whether music shares the origin of common ancestors. In humans, if we are walking or enduring and listening to music, then we are normal with the rhythm. In the studies conducted by Yuko Hattori, an assistant professor at the University of Kyoto Research Institute, chimpanzees managed The synchronization of their movement to A variety of rhythms. Similar results were reported in another Ticket With Bonobo, Bonobo also managed to synchronize cylinder beats with humans in experience.

The movements of the main studies in these studies are not like humans, but one of the hypotheses used to explain the origins of music can help explain the differences. It indicates that in humans, our ability to move in a timely manner with a rhythm It stems from audio learning. Haturi said that people’s ability to refine this synchronization developed with our vocal capabilities.

“Monkeys are far -developing types, and there may be some gradual development in the context of the main development,” Haturi told Salon in a video call.

This hypothesis can explain why birds such as snowball and humans can move to a rhythm, although it raises questions about the ability of Ronan on the sea lion to move to the rhythm. Do not adapt to the sea black naturally to their calls to external stimuli in the wild, although the seals do so, which share an evolutionary root with the lions of the sea More than 20 million years over the ancestral tree. However, this common grandfather may be linked to a degree of voice learning in the lions of the sea.

It is rarely obtaining a chimpanzee brain or lions for ethical reasons, so what happens nervous when these animals move to music is also unknown. However, experiments in birds such as Zebra Finch help provide some answers about the reason for this type sings.

Although zebra Finches sings their own songs and does not move to external rhythms, they learn at the stage of these songs from the other brutal donkey fin, so there is a degree of learning and assimilation related to music.

In 2017 TicketOff Cherishovsky, who is studying animal behavior at Hunter College, and his team has an experiment had to have an unpleasant air blow in order to reach a lipstick hole where they can see a lyric bird. What they found is that the males were always ready to “pay” to hear any song, while the female was only ready to hear the song if it was presented with the song of her colleague. When the females were presented with the song of her colleague, dopamine levels rose.

“The thing is that females are not very sensitive to songs, so this was the opposite of what we thought exactly,” Chernechovsky said in a video call. “What we think is for females, the song revolves around sex, while the male shallow ass is more social.”

last Ticket It was released earlier this year, and the dopamine’s activity found an increase in Zebra Vinci youth when they sang songs that were closer to the publications of adult songs in the end compared to their songs that she deviated from her away.

Other studies have shown Male brutal ass Fench “Self -evaluation” their songs When they are practicing alone with songs, they are better singing the dopamine system more than the songs that it sings worse. However, when singing for females, dopamine system is activated by A. Social response based on the sermon they receive from the female.

Studies indicate that the dopamine system in humans is also activated when we listen to music. In one TicketPeople listen to their favorite music while under the functional magnetic resonance machine. In anticipation of that moment, the dopamine system was activated in the brain.

Moreover, studies also showed this Teenage music training increases sympathy And social behaviors. In other words, it brings us together – which we see when we applaud the rhythm in a concert or we sing the lyrics of popular songs. One study of 2014 found infants were More vulnerable to helping someone if this person shakes simultaneously For if they had done so from the rhythm.

“One of the important theories of music origins is that it can be a means of social interconnection and increase the social cohesion of the group,” said Hong. “You see the same thing with SnownBall: He loves to dance when his owner is there … she is always dancing with him, and this is what the bird loves.”

“Enjoyment is the key,” added sharpening. “If you feel pleasure from something, this means that it is biologically important, so it may be adaptive.”

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