Most animals do not tolerate our music or seem to like it in the least bit but a study published by David Teie suggests that monkeys respond to music with “monkey content”. In the study cotton top tamarins listened to songs that were based on their own calls and the music seemed to peak their interests and even alter their moods. Teie pointed out that human music is constructed for human perception and based on human development, therefore it only appeals to humans. To create a monkey song Teie used tamarin calls and manipulated the rising and falling of the pitches and the duration of the sounds. The songs contained two types of messages, fear and friendly affiliation. When the monkeys heard the fear song the monkeys displayed anxious and fearful behaviors. Upon hearing the affiliation song the monkeys calmed down and sometimes even foraged. When played human music the monkeys did not pay attention to it but when played Metallica it seemed to calm the monkeys! Teie also hopes to compose species specific music for the National Zoo so the animals can have a new type of enrichment activity. -Sara Ku (Group B)
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/01/monkey-music.html
Wow, this is really neat! I've heard of leaving a radio on to help your dog get over separation anxiety, but it would be really interesting if types of music could be crafted to a particular species' liking.
ReplyDeleteHowever, is it possible that the monkeys only became anxious because the calls within the song were negative ones? Also, the same reasoning goes for the affiliation song. What were the exact parameters of the experiment that proved it was the music causing the monkeys to react and not just the distorted sounds within them?
Posted by Bethany Rappleyea
Wow that is one interesting study! I'm just curious how the tamarin calls were altered to form these songs. Did they just take the characteristics of these calls and set them to instrumental music with corresponding the rise and fall of the notes or do they just take the calls themselves and put them to a beat?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think would happen if they use the calls from specific tamarin's to signal these behaviors? For example, do you think there would be a behavioral difference if they took anxious calls from the tamarin's father verses an intruder? Are these signals context dependent?
Posted by Christine Rega
This article is really interesting! You would never think metallica would calm someone down never mind a monkey! What are the similarities in the tamarin calls and the sounds produced by mettalica that calm them down? What other types of music are known to calm a monkey or any animal down? That photo is hilarious. Great article!
ReplyDeletePosted by: Carlos Varela
What a facinating article! How different were the manipulations from the natural sounds? Has this study been done with any other species of monkey? I wonder if monkeys create their own version of "music" or "songs" in nature and what the use of that would be.
ReplyDelete-Tricia Carlson
Do they have any ideas why metallica of all bands would calm down the monkeys? When they played songs for the monkeys, were they just monkey calls, or was there music too? Do they have plans for experiments to do in other species?
ReplyDelete-Emily Crete
So interesting! How much were the monkey calls altered to make these songs for the experiment? And did the article give any explaination for why the monkeys like Metallica? Were there any similarities between sounds in Metallica songs and the sounds made by the monkeys?
ReplyDelete-Sarah Benjamin
The article did not mention if it compiled musical instrument pieces with the tamarin calls. The article did mention that it altered the calls by changing the durations, pitches, frequencies, etc. The article did not mention what it was about Metallica that seemed to calm the monkeys but it did state that other human music did not seem to have an effect on the monkeys at all. I have no idea why they would like Metallica!
ReplyDeleteTeie also mentioned that he will be compiling music for other species and has already worked on a feline piece. It would be nice if he could compile calming calls for dogs so owners could play that while they were away. This new species specific music will definitely help with some behavioral issues in animals.
-Sara Ku
This is awesome. I, too, find Metallica to be rather soothing at times. Personally, if I were a monkey locked up in a zoo, I might be a little angry about it. Some metal to blow off a little steam would be pretty nice. But...that would be anthropomorphism, and we can't have that in science. Just look what Jane Goodall started, first we give them names...now we play them music? What is the world coming to?
ReplyDelete- Deysha Rivera
This article is very interesting. I know somewhat about this because I work in a lab with rhesus monkeys. They tend to get very upset if other monkeys around them are upset. Also if I go in a room and one of them threatens me they will all end up threatening me. I think it is funny how heavy metal would calm them down. I would think that it would cause them to get upset. Did the article mention what other human music it used in the experiment?
ReplyDelete-Sam Babcock
Its funny how Metallica seem to be the only human music to have an effect on the monkeys. I would expect them to pay attention to music done by human considering that we are closely related to these animals. I wonder how these monkeys would respond to heavy metal.
ReplyDeletePosted by Vanessa Raphael
This is really neat. As Sam said, I also work with monkeys and knew somewhat about this topic. Did they test other types of music other than heavy metal? Are the sounds close to their friendly sounds? Do they prefer to listen to music over not hearing anything at all? I thought this was true, but I'm not positive.
ReplyDelete-Alyson Paige
This is an interesting article, i have previously read about monkeys liking certain kinds of music, i would've nebver guessed the outcome of this study. It's good to see zoos looking for innovative enrichment for primates
ReplyDelete-gina fortunato