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Albouy P, Mehr SA, Hoyer RS, Ginzburg J, Du Y, Zatorre RJ. Spectro-temporal acoustical markers differentiate speech from song across cultures. Nat Commun 2024; 15:4835. [PMID: 38844457 PMCID: PMC11156671 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49040-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 05/21/2024] [Indexed: 06/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Humans produce two forms of cognitively complex vocalizations: speech and song. It is debated whether these differ based primarily on culturally specific, learned features, or if acoustical features can reliably distinguish them. We study the spectro-temporal modulation patterns of vocalizations produced by 369 people living in 21 urban, rural, and small-scale societies across six continents. Specific ranges of spectral and temporal modulations, overlapping within categories and across societies, significantly differentiate speech from song. Machine-learning classification shows that this effect is cross-culturally robust, vocalizations being reliably classified solely from their spectro-temporal features across all 21 societies. Listeners unfamiliar with the cultures classify these vocalizations using similar spectro-temporal cues as the machine learning algorithm. Finally, spectro-temporal features are better able to discriminate song from speech than a broad range of other acoustical variables, suggesting that spectro-temporal modulation-a key feature of auditory neuronal tuning-accounts for a fundamental difference between these categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philippe Albouy
- CERVO Brain Research Centre, School of Psychology, Laval University, Québec City, QC, Canada.
- International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, QC, Canada.
- Centre for Research in Brain, Language and Music and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology, Montréal, QC, Canada.
| | - Samuel A Mehr
- International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, QC, Canada
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
- Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA
| | - Roxane S Hoyer
- CERVO Brain Research Centre, School of Psychology, Laval University, Québec City, QC, Canada
| | - Jérémie Ginzburg
- CERVO Brain Research Centre, School of Psychology, Laval University, Québec City, QC, Canada
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, CNRS, UMR5292, INSERM, U1028 - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, F-69000, Lyon, France
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Yi Du
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Robert J Zatorre
- International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, QC, Canada.
- Centre for Research in Brain, Language and Music and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology, Montréal, QC, Canada.
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
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2
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Ozaki Y, Tierney A, Pfordresher PQ, McBride JM, Benetos E, Proutskova P, Chiba G, Liu F, Jacoby N, Purdy SC, Opondo P, Fitch WT, Hegde S, Rocamora M, Thorne R, Nweke F, Sadaphal DP, Sadaphal PM, Hadavi S, Fujii S, Choo S, Naruse M, Ehara U, Sy L, Parselelo ML, Anglada-Tort M, Hansen NC, Haiduk F, Færøvik U, Magalhães V, Krzyżanowski W, Shcherbakova O, Hereld D, Barbosa BS, Varella MAC, van Tongeren M, Dessiatnitchenko P, Zar SZ, El Kahla I, Muslu O, Troy J, Lomsadze T, Kurdova D, Tsope C, Fredriksson D, Arabadjiev A, Sarbah JP, Arhine A, Meachair TÓ, Silva-Zurita J, Soto-Silva I, Millalonco NEM, Ambrazevičius R, Loui P, Ravignani A, Jadoul Y, Larrouy-Maestri P, Bruder C, Teyxokawa TP, Kuikuro U, Natsitsabui R, Sagarzazu NB, Raviv L, Zeng M, Varnosfaderani SD, Gómez-Cañón JS, Kolff K, der Nederlanden CVB, Chhatwal M, David RM, Setiawan IPG, Lekakul G, Borsan VN, Nguqu N, Savage PE. Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadm9797. [PMID: 38748798 PMCID: PMC11095461 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adm9797] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/19/2024] [Indexed: 05/19/2024]
Abstract
Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a "musi-linguistic" continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuto Ozaki
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Adam Tierney
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK
| | - Peter Q. Pfordresher
- Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA
| | - John M. McBride
- Center for Algorithmic and Robotized Synthesis, Institute for Basic Science, Ulsan, South Korea
| | - Emmanouil Benetos
- School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
| | - Polina Proutskova
- School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
| | - Gakuto Chiba
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Fang Liu
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Nori Jacoby
- Computational Auditory Perception Group, Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Suzanne C. Purdy
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
- Centre for Brain Research and Eisdell Moore Centre for Hearing and Balance Research, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Patricia Opondo
- School of Arts, Music Discipline, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - W. Tecumseh Fitch
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Shantala Hegde
- Music Cognition Lab, Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
| | - Martín Rocamora
- Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Music Technology Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Rob Thorne
- School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
| | - Florence Nweke
- Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
- Department of Music, Mountain Top University, Ogun, Nigeria
| | - Dhwani P. Sadaphal
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Shafagh Hadavi
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Shinya Fujii
- Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Sangbuem Choo
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Marin Naruse
- Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
| | | | - Latyr Sy
- Independent researcher, Tokyo, Japan
- Independent researcher, Dakar, Sénégal
| | - Mark Lenini Parselelo
- Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada
- Department of Music and Dance, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
| | | | - Niels Chr. Hansen
- Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
- Interacting Minds Centre, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Felix Haiduk
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
| | - Ulvhild Færøvik
- Institute of Biological and Medical Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
| | - Violeta Magalhães
- Centre of Linguistics of the University of Porto (CLUP), Porto, Portugal
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP), Porto, Portugal
- School of Education of the Polytechnic of Porto (ESE IPP), Porto, Portugal
| | - Wojciech Krzyżanowski
- Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Art Studies, Musicology Institute, Poznań, Poland
| | | | - Diana Hereld
- Department of Psychiatry, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | | | | | | | | | - Su Zar Zar
- Headmistress, The Royal Music Academy, Yangon, Myanmar
| | - Iyadh El Kahla
- Department of Cultural Policy, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany
| | - Olcay Muslu
- Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
- MIRAS, Centre for Cultural Sustainability, Istanbul, Turkey
| | - Jakelin Troy
- Director, Indigenous Research, Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research); Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
| | - Teona Lomsadze
- International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony of the Tbilisi State Conservatoire, Tbilisi, Georgia
- Georgian Studies Fellow, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Dilyana Kurdova
- South-West University Neofit Rilski, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
- Phoenix Perpeticum Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria
| | | | | | - Aleksandar Arabadjiev
- Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology, University of Music and Performing Arts–MDW, Wien, Austria
| | | | - Adwoa Arhine
- Department of Music, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
| | - Tadhg Ó Meachair
- Department of Ethnomusicology and Folklore, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - Javier Silva-Zurita
- Department of Humanities and Arts, University of Los Lagos, Osorno, Chile
- Millennium Nucleus on Musical and Sound Cultures (CMUS NCS 2022-16), Santiago, Chile
| | - Ignacio Soto-Silva
- Department of Humanities and Arts, University of Los Lagos, Osorno, Chile
- Millennium Nucleus on Musical and Sound Cultures (CMUS NCS 2022-16), Santiago, Chile
| | | | | | - Psyche Loui
- Music, Imaging and Neural Dynamics Lab, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Andrea Ravignani
- Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Yannick Jadoul
- Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Pauline Larrouy-Maestri
- Music Department, Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Max Planck—NYU Center for Language, Music, and Emotion (CLaME), New York, NY, USA
| | - Camila Bruder
- Music Department, Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Tutushamum Puri Teyxokawa
- Txemim Puri Project–Puri Language Research, Vitalization and Teaching/Recording and Preservation of Puri History and Culture, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
| | | | | | | | - Limor Raviv
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- cSCAN, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Minyu Zeng
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
- Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Shahaboddin Dabaghi Varnosfaderani
- Institute for English and American Studies (IEAS), Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Cognitive and Developmental Psychology Unit, Centre, for Cognitive Science, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), Kaiserslautern, Germany
| | | | - Kayla Kolff
- Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
| | | | - Meyha Chhatwal
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada
| | - Ryan Mark David
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada
| | | | - Great Lekakul
- Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
| | - Vanessa Nina Borsan
- Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
- Université de Lille, CNRS, Centrale Lille, UMR 9189 CRIStAL, F-59000 Lille, France
| | - Nozuko Nguqu
- School of Arts, Music Discipline, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - Patrick E. Savage
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
- Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
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Bianco R, Zuk NJ, Bigand F, Quarta E, Grasso S, Arnese F, Ravignani A, Battaglia-Mayer A, Novembre G. Neural encoding of musical expectations in a non-human primate. Curr Biol 2024; 34:444-450.e5. [PMID: 38176416 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Revised: 10/26/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
The appreciation of music is a universal trait of humankind.1,2,3 Evidence supporting this notion includes the ubiquity of music across cultures4,5,6,7 and the natural predisposition toward music that humans display early in development.8,9,10 Are we musical animals because of species-specific predispositions? This question cannot be answered by relying on cross-cultural or developmental studies alone, as these cannot rule out enculturation.11 Instead, it calls for cross-species experiments testing whether homologous neural mechanisms underlying music perception are present in non-human primates. We present music to two rhesus monkeys, reared without musical exposure, while recording electroencephalography (EEG) and pupillometry. Monkeys exhibit higher engagement and neural encoding of expectations based on the previously seeded musical context when passively listening to real music as opposed to shuffled controls. We then compare human and monkey neural responses to the same stimuli and find a species-dependent contribution of two fundamental musical features-pitch and timing12-in generating expectations: while timing- and pitch-based expectations13 are similarly weighted in humans, monkeys rely on timing rather than pitch. Together, these results shed light on the phylogeny of music perception. They highlight monkeys' capacity for processing temporal structures beyond plain acoustic processing, and they identify a species-dependent contribution of time- and pitch-related features to the neural encoding of musical expectations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberta Bianco
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy.
| | - Nathaniel J Zuk
- Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK
| | - Félix Bigand
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Eros Quarta
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Stefano Grasso
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Flavia Arnese
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Andrea Ravignani
- Comparative Bioacoustics Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music, Universitetsbyen 3, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Alexandra Battaglia-Mayer
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Giacomo Novembre
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy.
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