A few scientists with nothing more to do decided to find out if primates have the same emotional reaction to music as humans do. For the study, they teamed up with a cellist that made music with features commonly heard in monkey calls, like rising and falling tones. They then played the music for some tamarin monkeys and compared the “monkey melodies” (yeah, that’s what the article called them) to human music by the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and Metallica to compare the reactions.
The result? The calming monkey music chilled the monkeys out, making them more likely to lounge around and eat. The alarming monkey music made them agitated. But what about the human music, you ask? Well, they didn’t react to any of it – except for Metallica’s “Of Wolf and Man!” But instead of agitating it, it actually calmed them!!! These monkeys are kvlt! The report, in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, seems to have far-reaching implications of how music has evolved, but we really think that it was an excuse for some scientists to listen to Tool and Metallica while playing with monkeys.
via [The Guardian]
