Non-human animals detect the rhythmic structure of a familiar tune

The musical motives of a song emerge from the temporal arrangement of discrete tones. These tones normally have few durational values, and are organized in structured groups to create metrical patterns. In the present study we show that the ability to detect the rhythmic structure of a song, while i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychonomic bulletin & review 2020-08, Vol.27 (4), p.694-699
Main Authors: Celma-Miralles, Alexandre, Toro, Juan M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal cognition
Animals
Auditory Perception
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Brief Report
Cognitive Psychology
Female
Food
Music - psychology
Pattern Recognition, Physiological
Periodicity
Psychology
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
Rhythm
Time Perception
Values
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Summary:The musical motives of a song emerge from the temporal arrangement of discrete tones. These tones normally have few durational values, and are organized in structured groups to create metrical patterns. In the present study we show that the ability to detect the rhythmic structure of a song, while ignoring surface changes, is also present in other species. We familiarized rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) with an excerpt of the Happy Birthday song. During test, we presented the animals with (i) the same excerpt of the familiarization, (ii) a constant-pitch version of the excerpt that reduced melodic intervals to only one tone (i.e., isotonic) but preserved rhythmic structure, and (iii) a rhythmically scrambled version of the excerpt that preserved the melodic intervals. The animals discriminated the rhythmically scrambled version from the versions that preserved the original rhythm. This demonstrates that rats were sensitive to at least some parts of the rhythmic structure of the tune. Together with previous findings, the present set of results suggests that the emergence of rhythmic musical universals might be based on principles shared with other species.
ISSN:1069-9384
1531-5320
DOI:10.3758/s13423-020-01739-2