Monkey Studies
Love Music More · hosted by Luke F. Walton · Solo episode
The podcast feed is titled Love Music More with Scoobert Doobert. Scoobert Doobert is Luke F. Walton's primary music project.
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Host note
Last week I asked whether a newborn can already predict music, on What Babies Listen To. This one stays with that question and aims it at rhythm, then at monkeys. The factory-default version is: how much musical expectation do we show up with?
Winkler and colleagues, in 2009, played rhythmic patterns to babies a few days old. Their brains reacted hard to downbeats. I put that next to James Brown and the one: hit the one and people have something to dance to. Wheels on the Bus works the same way. The newborns were not only memorizing a string of noises. Inside a short phrase they were building a picture of where the pattern should go, and an unexpected move lit the brain up. I had thought that arrived later. I will not make the same claim for pitch. I have not found a newborn study with a clear equivalent for an out-of-key note. Timing shows up. What counts as pleasant may still be the cultural part.
A friend, Jordan, did this kind of work in a neuroscience program and said the monkeys were the worst coworkers. Some days they did not want to come in. That is the right caution for the rhesus macaque result. Two animals showed sensitivity to unexpected timing. That is not a sweeping evolutionary proof. They might be savants. It is still interesting if a basic auditory system is already keeping a statistical model of sound, the way a footstep has a when. Speech, culture, and a life of listening turn that seed into what we call music.
I do not want to call it innate and stop. The missing piece is what the baby had already heard: the mother's voice, speech rhythms, the heartbeat. Prenatal sound might be the first training set. From there, early humans are easier for me to picture around a fire, drumming, than as a cave painting, because I have been at that fire. If there is alien music, it is probably ordered frequencies over time too, even if their ears are not ours. We cannot know. It is still a good door to leave open.
Selected moments
- How much expectation do we arrive with? 1:04 I frame the episode as the factory-default question: how much musical expectation is already there.
- Winkler, 2009, and the downbeat 1:50 I stay on rhythm: Winkler and colleagues, babies a few days old, brains reacting to downbeats.
- James Brown and the one 2:26 I connect the downbeat finding to the one, and to children's songs that land the stress where you expect it.
- A phrase, not a string of noises 3:07 I argue the newborns are organizing the pattern, the same statistical move as the earlier study.
- Surprise is louder 4:19 I treat an unexpected entrance, a jump-scare horn, as part of the composer's palette, and I stop short of claiming newborns hear that.
- The worst coworkers 6:14 I tell Jordan's lab story, then turn to rhesus macaques and unexpected timing.
- Two animals is not a theory of evolution 7:05 I refuse the sweeping claim. Two macaques might be savants. A statistical model of sound might still be the seed.
- What did the baby already hear? 8:26 I hold the innate reading back. Heartbeat, voice, and speech rhythm may be the first training set.
- Drums around the fire, and aliens 9:52 I picture early humans playing before I picture a cave painting, then leave the door open for alien music.
Selected excerpts
How much do we come with in terms of musical expectation?
The interesting finding was essentially the baby's brains reacted very strongly to downbeats.
The James Brown thing is all about the one.
Surprise is louder than not surprise in the same way like a jump scare works.
He said that they were the worst coworkers because just like humans, some days they didn't want to go to work.
We cannot know. But it's fun to at least think about some level of predisposition for music.
It's honestly one of the easiest ways for me to think about early humans is to think about them playing music.
FAQ
Do newborns already respond to rhythm?
On the study I talk through here, yes for timing. Winkler and colleagues, in 2009, played rhythmic patterns to babies a few days old, and the brains reacted strongly to downbeats. I do not make the same claim for an out-of-key pitch. I have not found a newborn result that clear.
Do monkeys have rhythm?
The rhesus macaque result I am using is small. Two animals showed sensitivity to unexpected timing. I will not turn that into a theory of how music evolved. A friend who worked with monkeys in a neuroscience program also said they were awful coworkers, which is its own kind of data.
Is musical expectation innate?
I do not know, and I say so on the episode. A newborn may already be organizing a short pattern, and prenatal sound, the heartbeat, a voice, speech rhythm, may have trained that before birth. Culture does the rest. The door is open. The proof is not.
Transcript
0:57 What's good, everybody?I'm Scoobert Doobert.Welcome back to Love Music More.Today, I wanna talk about more,what is our factory default setting?How much do we come within terms of musical expectation?And the best way to look at thatare these baby studies that I found.Talking about what is it like for a newbornand how can we assess that to listen to music?How can a newborn listen to music?
1:21 And then I found another one that talks about monkeys.So first, the newborns.So last time we talked about newborn brainsshowing evidence of essentially anticipatingthe next step of musicor having greater brain activitywhen an expectation that the musical phrase hasis cut off and they compare that to a scrambled control.This study, I wanna talk exclusively about rhythm.This is 2009 by Winkler, Winkler and Associates.
1:55 Sorry, Dr. Winkler.Your name is a little Winkley.The researchers, they played a different rhythmic patterns.And so this is, again, just a few days old.That last study was zero to two days old.This is just a few days old, I think like three to five.So the interesting finding was essentiallythe baby's brains reacted very strongly to downbeats.So in terms of one, two, three, four,those are all downbeats.
2:26 So the James Brown thing is all about the one.So you can do.Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.Like as long as you're hitting that onethen you are given the people something to dance to.You are giving them the musical payoff of and we're back.In the same thing that you look at a lotof like early children's music and you go the wheels
2:52 on the bus go round and round, very downbeat focused.Cause it's pleasant, you know?I think that as we get older, you want more stuffthat's just floating out there going across the bar line.Or is that just me?But anyway, so one of the thingsthat the babies were reacting towas essentially go wheels on the bus go roundand where's the round, you know?For example, like obviously they don't know words yet
3:22 but essentially what they're doingis they're not necessarily just memorizingthe sequence of noises.They are organizing the patternin the same way that in that other studythey are creating statistical representationsof where the music ought to go nextbased on the music's own vocabulary.And I can't get over how crazy that is.Because I thought that that would have to happen later.
3:42 I thought that was like more of a deep brain developmentphase and so that's why I was like,okay, what about monkeys?So adult humans, right?They're the control group.They show neural sensitivity to unexpected timingand unexpected pitch in the same waythat you would expect unexpected wordsor unexpected timbre, like a weird horn comes inin the middle of a song that had no horns.That's a big moment.
4:11 And this is part of the things that like kind of the palettethat we use as composers to influence emotionbecause surprise is louder than not surprisein the same way like a jump scare worksbut we can use that to have bold entrancesand to create tension and releasenot only with the notes that we chooseor the rhythms that we choosebut the entrances that we choosethe timbral things, the textural things
4:42 but that's pretty high level.There's no evidence that I have foundthat that kind of stuff is able to be assessed by a newbornbut the newborns were showing unexpected timingand unexpected statistical movesas having neural activation.Having unexpected pitches has yet,there's yet to be a study that showsa significant equivalent effect for pitches.So you can kind of, it might be a little bit too elegant
5:14 but you can kind of think about it like adult humansyou've swum in the fishbowl quite a bit.You have really soaked in the cultureand you have the ability to have your expectations built.Then the newborns, they have at least the abilityto within a given piece or within a given little phraseto develop a sense of where this is kind of goingand if something changes drastically unexpected timing
5:39 unexpected moves, it can light up the brainand go, what the heck was that?But there isn't necessarily like, wow,that pitch was out of key or somethingand that could go back to the pod a few weeks ago aboutis consonance is the ideanot consonants with a T like the letter Tbut the sound of prosody,the opposite of dissonance,the idea of something being pleasant.That is quite cultural.
6:09 So that might be part of what's going onin terms of that unexpected pitch.Now let's talk about the rhesus macaque.One of my buddies Jordan,he had to do in his neuroscience degreehe did this like monkey studiesand he said that they were the worst coworkersbecause just like humans,some days they didn't want to go to work,some days they didn't want to do their job
6:30 and he said it was really frustrating working with monkeys.So I thought about these researcherstrying to do something as complexas studying music with monkeys.I'm sure that that was very difficultbut shout out to those rhesus macaquesfor helping us with this science.So it's tempting to read thisas just evolutionary or developmental.Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.I don't want to go completely there.
6:57 But the rhesus macaques showed timing too.Unexpected timing.There's only two animals.Again, rhesus macaques are bad coworkers.So it can't be this sweeping evolutionand maybe those two rhesus macaques are savants.But it is interesting to be like,okay, maybe there is a fundamental auditory thinggoing on and maybe it makes senseof the expectation of a footstep.Maybe there's something inherent evolutionarily
7:31 of building a statistical representation of soundthat then as you get olderand you add more of the cultural components,that becomes more of the ordered sound that becomes music.But that might be the seed from which music comes.And then think about aliens, right?I think it's fun to think about aliensbecause it's like, okay,far outside of ourselves can we step.But maybe there's alien music out there
7:55 along with alien food and maybe alien painting.But what would an alien music sound like?It would probably be ordered frequencies over time.Probably.And maybe it would arise in much the same way.They might have very different ears than us.They might have ears like a bumblebeeor something like that.So we wouldn't even be able to hear their musicbut maybe we could throw in a pitch shifterand pitch it down.
8:19 So I don't want to go too far.I don't want to say that necessarily this is all innatebecause there's a missing piece hereof what did the baby hear?You know like baby Einstein or baby Mozartwhere they'll put the headphones on the pregnant belly.There is, there's something there.I mean, the mother's voice, speech rhythms,environmental sounds, bodily sounds,like everything recurring, including the heartbeat.
8:53 So that might mean that that baby that's zero years oldhas got some amount of rhythm, timing, stress, expectation.And maybe this is something in mammalsof like you get carried aroundand you have proximity to the beating heart of your mother.So we cannot know, we cannot know.But it's fun to at least think about some levelof predisposition for music.And maybe the prenatal experience helps to train us
9:33 and then speech continues it.And then from there, the rhythm of the party,the festival of the war, the alerts,all of those things, the bone flutesthat connect us to our history.And it's honestly one of the easiest ways for meto think about like early humansis to think about them playing music.Like there's something there more than a cave paintingor whatever that humanizes someone
10:03 of just jamming out on drums around the fire.It's like I've been there.I don't know, I think all of this pairs really nicelyto at the very least crack the doorin an interesting direction.And the fact that these signs of organizationappear at day zero, I don't know.I think music's pretty cool.And maybe the aliens would agree, I don't know.The rhesus macaques seem to agree.If you enjoyed this episode, go listen to my music.
10:34 If you're an alien, let me know.Go to scoobertdoobert.pizza to check it out.And I would very much appreciate you sharing this podcastto your fellow weird friends.You can share it on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcast,all of the things.Like, subscribe, five star.And I will see you again next week.Thank you for listening.
The transcript above is a reviewed transcript of this episode (JSON). The recording is the Spotify episode.