Ever wondered why apes don’t possess musical talent like humans, parrots and other animals? The ability to mimic and imitate things like music and speech is the result of the fact that synchronised group movement quite simply makes it possible to perceive sounds from the surroundings better, according to new research.
The evolution of vocal learning, that is musical traits, is influenced by the need of a species to deal with the disturbing sounds that are created in connection with locomotion, according to a hypothesis by Matz Larsson, senior physician at the Lung Clinic at Orebro University Hospital.
These sounds can affect our hearing only when we move, according to Larsson’s article in the scientific publication Animal Cognition.
“When several people with legs of roughly the same length move together, we tend to unconsciously move in rhythm.
When our footsteps occur simultaneously, a brief interval of silence occurs,” Larsson said. “In the middle of each stride we can hear our surroundings better.
It becomes easier to hear a pursuer, and perhaps easier to conduct a conversation as well,” said Larsson.
A behaviour that has survival value tends to produce dopamine, the “reward molecule.”
In dangerous terrain, this could result in the stimulation of rhythmic movements and enhanced listening to surrounding sounds in nature.
If that kind of synchronised behaviour was rewarding in dangerous environments it may as well have been rewarding for the brain in relative safety, resulting in activities such as hand-clapping, foot-stamping and yelping around the campfire.
From there it is just a short step to dance and rhythm.
The hormone dopamine flows when we listen to music, Larsson said. (PTI)
