Scientists compared the human and monkey brains' responses to music and speech
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Last Update: 2021-03-15
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Source: Internet
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Author: User
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recently published in Nature-Neuroscience suggests that the auditory brain region of humans prefers harmonic sounds, but rhesus monkeys do not.
and music are considered unique to humans, both contain harmonic frequencies, or "pitches". The ability to distinguish pitch is critical for speech and music. Areas of the human brain that are thought to be involved in pitch perception respond more strongly to harmonic tones than to noise. However, it is not clear whether the brains of other animals also have similar brain regions.
Sam Norman-Haignere of Columbia University in New York and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brains of humans and rhesus monkeys' responses to natural and synthetic harmonic sounds, including rhesus monkey call recordings, and then compared those reactions with their responses to soundless noise.
experiment, the researchers observed four human subjects react strongly to harmonic tones, while three other rhesus monkeys did not. In another experiment, the researchers played the natural calls of rhesus monkeys to six people and five rhesus monkeys, or changed harmonic tones to noise calls, and tested their brain responses. It was found that the human brain showed greater selectivity to harmonic calls than rhesus monkeys.
the researchers concluded that differences in the hearing cortical tissue of humans and rhesus monkeys may be due to the unique importance of speech and music to humans. (Source: Jin Nan, China Science Journal)
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