Newborn babies have a musical talent. They cannot yet sing, dance or whistle, but from day two they can hear and recognize a pulse – the regularity in music. This is evident from recent research by the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the HUN-REN Research Center in Hungary.
This skill is essential for making and enjoying music. “If you have no sense of time, you cannot make music with someone else,” says professor of music cognition (UvA) Henkjan Honing, who was involved in the research. “Then you can’t dance together.”
Evolutionary role of music
It has long been thought that musical skills, such as sense of time, are learned by humans. The new research shows the opposite: perceiving a beat in music is innate.
People’s innate sense of time suggests that perceiving and making music has an evolutionary history, says Honing. “It is in our genes, so that as a species we are better adapted to a certain situation and can therefore survive better.”
Previous studies showed that a sense of rhythm is important when learning a language. In addition, there are theories that state that music contributes to relationships in groups of people. “Syncing to music is a way to show that you are a group that is close and works together,” Honing explains. “Another interpretation is that music makes people feel more together because they can jump up and down together.” According to the professor, for example, there are experiments that show that moving together rhythmically makes people more empathetic.
Sleeping during drum rhythms
The researchers had 27 babies listen to different drum rhythms with headphones while they slept. In one rhythm, the time between the sounds was the same – then a pulse or beat could be heard in the rhythm. The other rhythm was the same drum pattern, but with random timing between the different sounds. There was no regularity here.
While playing the drum rhythms, the researchers looked at the babies’ brain activity. They saw that they only perceived a beat when the time between the sounds was the same. When there was a random time interval between the drum rhythms (and therefore no pulse), the babies felt no beat. This shows that the ability to recognize a beat does not arise from learning a certain rhythm – which has long been one of the criticisms of previous research into babies’ sense of rhythm.
Dancing babies and cockatoos
Although newborn babies can hear a beat, they cannot yet move rhythmically to music. When they are about three months old, they can spontaneously move to music.
“You also see that in adults,” says Honing. “If you put someone in a scanner and have them listen to James Brown, the motor cortex is completely active, while you cannot move in the scanner.” The motor cortex is the part of the brain responsible for movement. There is a link between this area of the brain and the part that deals with sound. That is why, according to Honing, children sometimes move to music when they are old enough to have control over their muscles.
Humans may not be the only ones born with a sense of size. A world-famous example of a dancing animal is the sulphur-crested cockatoo called Snowball. “The bird became world famous in 2009 because it could dance to the Backstreet Boys.” Snowball is believed to be the first non-human animal that can sense a beat and synchronize its body to it. The cockatoo holds the world record for ‘most dance movements by a bird.’
Also read:
Why are people the way they are? Maybe singing parrots can tell
Humans are extremely musical – at least, compared to other species. “We can hear clearly whether a note is lower or higher,” explains biologist Michelle Spierings from Leiden University.
2023-12-15 17:59:00
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