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Anyone with normal hearing can distinguish between the musical tones in a scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. We take this ability for granted, but among most mammals the feat is unparalleled.
This finding is one of many insights into the remarkable acuity of human hearing garnered by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, reported in January in the journal Nature.
Izhak Fried of U.C.L.A. and his colleagues worked with epileptic patients who had electrodes implanted in their brain to pinpoint the source of their seizures. Some of the probes linked to the auditory cortex, providing the researchers with a detailed window into sound processing.
The study revealed that groups of exquisitely sensitive neurons exist along the auditory nerve on its way from the ear to the auditory cortex. In these neurons natural sounds, such as the human voice, elicit a completely different and far more complex set of responses than do artificial noises such as pure tones. In this mixed environment humans can easily detect frequencies as fine as one twelfth of an octave—a half step in musical terminology.
The vexing question is: Why? Bats are the only mammal with a better ability to hear changes in pitch than humans do. Predatory species such as dogs are not nearly as sensitive—they can discriminate resolutions of one third of an octave. Even our primate relatives do not come close: macaques can resolve only half an octave. These results suggest the fine discrimination of sound is not a necessity for survival.
More likely, the researchers speculate, humans use their fine hearing to facilitate working memory and learning capabilities, but more research is needed to explore this puzzle.
This article was originally published with the title Why Dogs Don't Enjoy Music.
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23 Comments
Add CommentCould it also be that humans are attuned (pun intended) to fine gradations of pitch in order to facillitate language acquisition and comprehension, and to make sense of minute vocal inflections that add to effective communication? Or perhaps having a musical ear fosters human musical gatherings, thus increasing chances of survival and procreation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmm...I had a Welsh Corgi that would howl with saxophone music. Does that count as enjoying it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEffective communication using language would be an important development to aid survival and improved cooperative group activity. As language and cognitive capacity develops to include conceptualisation and conciousness then the range of auditory cues and combinations available would naturally need to increase as well. It might be an interesting study to compare 'aural' with 'visual' learners.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"These results suggest the fine discrimination of sound is not a necessity for survival."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would be a feature explained in memetics. A memetic driven evolution in humans leading to this ability.
Check out Susan Whitmore's The Meme Machine. Amazing book.
"These results suggest the fine discrimination of sound is not a necessity for survival." I've often thought that the ability to appreciate the quality of sounds is vital in a tool-making species. In many crafts practiced by early humans -- selecting stone for tools, judging whether wood for a boat or clay for a pot is sound, or assessing whether a bow is properly strung -- the ability to judge the quality of sound is essential. It would be interesting to study the ways in which contemporary stone age cultures use sound in tool-making.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The vexing question is: Why? [various other animals don't have our ability] These results suggest the fine discrimination of sound is not a necessity for survival"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's so beside point of evolution. It's like saying breathing underwater is not necessary for survival because some creatures can't. However, if you live underwater (like a fish) then clearly the ability to breath underwater is going to give you an advantage.
This is not about necessity, it's about an evolutionary advantage. Clearly, given how social humans became and how we started to use language and how our brains developed the ability to use information such as the quality or pitch of sounds to cognitively model objects in our environment, it's easy to understand why this ability gave us so many advantages over our competitors.
"In this mixed environment humans can easily detect frequencies as fine as one twelfth of an octave—a half step in musical terminology."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously someone who listens to only Western music only knows the 12 half-steps, but certain instruments in other cultures, such as India, make use of all the quarter-tones as well. Sure it takes a little listening adjustment, but how could we make use of them if we cannot hear them?
-This is one of the shortest yet informative articles i have ever read. It should have focused more about how effective the music is to the nature of Dogs? or how well is the music affecting the dogs behavior?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoverall good article but it leaves me with the thought of it only being dogs (mammals) whose ears are responsive to music...
I have had several dogs who clearly enjoy music. This is observed as behaviors such as coming into the room and laying near the speakers when music is turned on and laying next to my guitar amp every time I practice or laying next to me every time I play my acoustic guitar. They generally display a pronounced preference as to genre as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect that marine mammals, especially sperm whales, also have fine pitch disrimination, It's a necessity for a creature using echolcation to find it's prey.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect that marine mammals, especially sperm whales which hunt qsuid at great depths, also have fine pitch discrimination, Not just for locating the prey but determining it's movment via the doppler effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally, I think the ability to discriminate between so many sounds is the result of the benifit of empathy. If we can pick up the subtle vocal clues to another person's emotional state, we will be better equiped to deal with that person appropriately and to our advantage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would bet it is part of our aquatic heritage. If you compare us with dolphins, for instance, I will lay you any money their ability to resolve sound is better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have voluntary control over our breathing, which is unique among apes, and a necessity for speech. We have mostly hairless skin, which is useful in the water. We have sweat glands that secrete more salt when they are fatigued than when they start (which suggests they were, for a while, salt secretion glands.) We like the water, and like being near it where our closest relatives dislike it. We have a dive reflex. We can swim.
I wonder if our hearing started as an ability to hear things underwater in order to catch them and evade them.
After that, I think that aour speech and musical abilities were subject to runaway sexual selection. Women like men who speak well, and women love men who sing and make music.
There's no doubt at all that my 2 dogs love music if it corresponds to their individual tastes. My female German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix (age 13) has always loved jazz music, as long as it's not of the harsh/dissonant variety. Put on "Sketches of Spain", Chico Hamilton, or some bossa nova and she'll come out and lounge next to the stereo, looking very happy. My male Boxer/Labrador (age 15) loves classical music and soft ambient techno. He'll lie down with his head inches from the subwoofer if a deep soothing beat is playing. They also enjoy it when I play the acoustic guitar as long as I'm playing well. They are discerning critics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat picture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting. As a musician, I have often wondered how our animal companions perceive music. It's fairly well known that dogs and cats can hear sounds more than twice the frequency that perfect human hearing can. So not only do they hear a bunch of extra high-frequency noise, the resolution of the intended content is such that it probably makes no sense to them. No wonder they run when I break out the acoustic guitar!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of our long deceased dogs (a corgie cross) used to sit in front of the record player every day until a record was put on. We never established what her favourites were, but she never complained about our choices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn also "late" Abyssynian cat used to get very excited by Barogue music.
I speculate that humans have evolved this ability not for the same natural selection reasons as other animals (food, danger, hunting, mating) but due to the complex social interactions. It would be of an evolutionary advantage to be able to detect when someone is lying, nervous, angry, loving, sexually attracted, etc... when that person hides it for their own reasons. We use our eyes to detect tiny, very subtle expressions in the faces of others to undestand what they are really thinking. The same would probably go with hints from sound.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a nonsense to suggest that dogs can't discern pitch. They may not understand our tonal scale of course, but they can be trained to recognize tunes whistled by shepherds training them to round up flocks of sheep. They know when a dog whistle being blown is in the wrong key to the one they're familiar with. This suggests they not only have pitch recognition but they have a pitch memory too. I had a Spaniel that would howl with excitement on the way to his favorite walk in my car, and he always howled in the same key as the music playing on the radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, the writer Sandy Fritz got it wrong about humans being able to differentiate one 12th of an octave. That's wrong, humans can detect a much smaller pitch change than that; just 3 Cents ( A cent is one hundredth part of a half step or semi tone) Methinks Sandy Fritz would have done well to look up Helmholtz on the Sensations of Tone written in the 1890s.
It's a nonsense to suggest that dogs can't discern pitch. They may not understand our tonal scale of course, but they can be trained to recognize tunes whistled by shepherds training them to round up flocks of sheep. They know when a dog whistle being blown is in the wrong key to the one they're familiar with. This suggests they not only have pitch recognition but they have a pitch memory too. I had a Spaniel that would howl with excitement on the way to his favorite walk in my car, and he always howled in the same key as the music playing on the radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, the writer Sandy Fritz got it wrong about humans being able to differentiate one 12th of an octave. That's wrong, humans can detect a much smaller pitch change than that; just 3 Cents ( A cent is one hundredth part of a half step or semi tone) Methinks Sandy Fritz would have done well to look up Helmholtz on the Sensations of Tone written in the 1890s.
It's a nonsense to suggest that dogs can't discern pitch. They may not understand our tonal scale of course, but they can be trained to recognize tunes whistled by shepherds training them to round up flocks of sheep. They know when a dog whistle being blown is in the wrong key to the one they're familiar with. This suggests they not only have pitch recognition but they have a pitch memory too. I had a Spaniel that would howl with excitement on the way to his favorite walk in my car, and he always howled in the same key as the music playing on the radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, the writer Sandy Fritz got it wrong about humans being able to differentiate one 12th of an octave. That's wrong, humans can detect a much smaller pitch change than that; just 3 Cents ( A cent is one hundredth part of a half step or semi tone) Methinks Sandy Fritz would have done well to look up Helmholtz on the Sensations of Tone written in the 1890s.
Well, often times, jazz music covers a lot of octaves. This means that your dog distinguishes tones between sections of jazz music. I don't really think that your dog is appreciating it, but it definitely hears it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell fair comment but I wasn't suggesting that my dog appreciated anything associated with musical content. We were merely discussing the animal's ability to recognise pitch and have a pitch memory - if only to recognise their own familiar master's voice. Remember the old HMV Dog and Trumpet Logo where the dog has his ear cocked against a gramophone trumpet recognising his master's recorded voice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo obviously dogs don't understand or appreciate what music is, but my current dog knows when I'm coming to the end of a piece of piano music that I play and that when the last note sounds, he expects me to get up and leave the room (so he stands up in the last few bars of the piece) then gets ready for me to stand up and leave the room. How does he know it's the end other than by passive recognition that I have come to the end of the tune sequence.
I've never been one to believe that birds sing music, because it has been proved that their "song" is a territorial trade-mark and claims their patch. People sometimes think they've heard a bird singing musical scales (often a Blackbird) but it never is a convincing true musical scale. Birds can mimic music they hear and voices and even mobile phone ringtones that they've heard but this doesn't mean they know anything about the human sense of music.
Neither do dogs - it appears to me.