Categorical rhythms in a singing primate

Gregorio, Chiara De; Valente, Daria; Raimondi, Teresa; Torti, Valeria; Miaretsoa, Longondraza; Friard, Olivier; Giacoma, Cristina; Ravignani, Andrea; Gamba, Marco

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.032

Cited by 49 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In chimpanzees, both males and females engaged in such rhythmic behaviors, whereas for the great majority of other species where rhythmic output has been described-almost exclusively in the form of vocalizations-this phenomenon is typically restricted to males (as reviewed in sections 2.1. and 4.1). Based on extant data, the vocalizations of some primate species-such as titi monkeys, tarsiers, and indris-could be an exception to this male bias (Caselli et al, 2014;Clink et al, 2020;de Gregorio et al, 2021;Gamba et al, 2019). Although we found that male chimpanzees performed rhythmic behaviors more often than female chimpanzees, the social efficacy of these behaviors did not seem to differ between sexes, displaying similar levels of social influence on conspecifics .…”

Section: A Diversity Of Functional Contexts: Moving Beyond Courtship ...mentioning

confidence: 51%

“…Data from two recent studies have uncovered that the song of thrush nightingales (Luscinia luscinia) and indri lemurs (Indri indri) exhibits a number of similarities to human musical rhythm at the lowest level of rhythmic organization, that is, when comparing two successive inter-onset intervals in a sound sequence (de Gregorio et al, 2021;Roeske et al, 2020). As such, both indri and thrush song exhibited isochronous rhythms that favored small integer ratios, although the tendency for 1:2 ratio was significant only in the indris.…”

Section: Musical Rhythm Is Not a Monolithic Ability: Moving Beyond Au...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Natural History of Musical Rhythm: Functional and Mechanistic Theories on the Evolution of Human Rhythm Cognition and the Relevance of Rhythmic Animal Behaviors

Sauciuc¹,

Persson²,

Madsen³

2022

CCBR

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Recently, interest has been growing in investigating rhythm cognition and behavior in nonhuman animals as a way of tracking the evolutionary origins of human musicality-that is, the ability to perceive, enjoy, and produce music. During the past 2 decades, an explosion of theoretical proposals have aimed at explaining why and how humans have evolved into musical beings, and the empirical comparative research has gained momentum. In this article, we focus on the rhythmic component of musicality and review functional and mechanistic theoretical proposals concerning putative prerequisites for perceiving and producing rhythmic structures similar to those encountered in music. For each theoretical proposal, we also review supporting and contradictory empirical findings. To acknowledge that the evolutionary study of musicality requires an interdisciplinary approach, our review strives to cover perspectives and findings from as many disciplines as possible. We conclude with a research agenda that highlights relevant, yet thus far neglected, topics in the comparative and evolutionary study of rhythm cognition. Specifically, we call for a widened research focus that will include additional rhythmic abilities besides entrainment, additional channels of perception and production besides the auditory and vocal ones, and a systematic focus on the functional contexts in which rhythmic signals spontaneously occur. With this expanded focus, and drawing from systematic observation and experimentation anchored in multiple disciplines, animal research is bound to generate many important insights into the adaptive pressures that forged the component abilities of human rhythm cognition and their (socio)cognitive and (neuro)biological underpinnings.

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Section: A Diversity Of Functional Contexts: Moving Beyond Courtship ...mentioning

confidence: 51%

Section: Musical Rhythm Is Not a Monolithic Ability: Moving Beyond Au...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Natural History of Musical Rhythm: Functional and Mechanistic Theories on the Evolution of Human Rhythm Cognition and the Relevance of Rhythmic Animal Behaviors

Sauciuc¹,

Persson²,

Madsen³

2022

CCBR

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“…Rhythm clusters in human music and some animal vocalizations are generalized across tempo [ 17 , 29 ]. The tempo of a rhythm can be approximated as its rhythm length, which is the combined duration of a rhythm ratio’s constituent inter-onset intervals.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntactic modulation of rhythm in Australian pied butcherbird song

et al. 2022

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The acoustic structure of birdsong is spectrally and temporally complex. Temporal complexity is often investigated in a syntactic framework focusing on the statistical features of symbolic song sequences. Alternatively, temporal patterns can be investigated in a rhythmic framework that focuses on the relative timing between song elements. Here, we investigate the merits of combining both frameworks by integrating syntactic and rhythmic analyses of Australian pied butcherbird ( Cracticus nigrogularis ) songs, which exhibit organized syntax and diverse rhythms. We show that rhythms of the pied butcherbird song bouts in our sample are categorically organized and predictable by the song’s first-order sequential syntax. These song rhythms remain categorically distributed and strongly associated with the first-order sequential syntax even after controlling for variance in note length, suggesting that the silent intervals between notes induce a rhythmic structure on note sequences. We discuss the implication of syntactic–rhythmic relations as a relevant feature of song complexity with respect to signals such as human speech and music, and advocate for a broader conception of song complexity that takes into account syntax, rhythm, and their interaction with other acoustic and perceptual features.

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“…We used a custom Praat script to extract each interval duration (Gamba et al, 2015). To evaluate the rhythmic structure of parents' contributions, we imported the duration of the intervals in R (R Core Team, 2020; version 3.4.3) to calculate the interonset intervals (IOI) within (WP) and between phrases (BP; De Gregorio et al, , 2021a.…”

Section: Rhythmic Song Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Units of different types composing indri's songs can be emitted alone (single notes) or organized in phrases of two to six units (Zanoli et al, 2020), with shorter phrases (i.e., including two and three units) more likely to be included in the songs (Valente et al, 2021). Indris emit units and phrases with a precise rhythmic pattern (De Gregorio et al, 2021a). Songs serve different functions, such as inter-and intragroup communication and territory defense (Torti et al, 2013;Bonadonna et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent-offspring turn-taking dynamics influence parents’ song structure and elaboration in a singing primate

et al. 2022

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Parent-offspring interactions are essential to interpret animal social evolution and behavior, but their role in mediating acoustic communication in animals that interact vocally is still unclear. Increasing evidence shows that primate vocal communication is way more flexible than previously assumed, and research on this topic can provide further information on how the social environment shaped vocal plasticity during the evolution of the Primate order. Indris communicate through elaborated vocal emissions, usually termed songs. Songs are interactive vocal displays in which all members of the family group alternate their emissions, taking turns during chorusing events. We aimed to understand whether specific rules regulate the turn-taking of different group members and investigate the flexibility of indris’ vocal behavior when co-singing with their offspring. We found that social factors can influence the turn-taking organization in a chorus, as offspring were more likely to drop out from the parents’ duet than join in, and we speculate that overlap might signal competition by members of the same-sex. The duet between the reproductive pair was the most common type of singing organization, followed by a duet between mothers and sons and the triadic interaction between mother, father, and son. Interestingly, parents’ solo singing seems to stimulate offspring to vocalize, and we also found that mothers and fathers simplify, at least in part, song elaboration when chorusing with offspring. Our results indicate that indris can perform short-time adjustments to the number of co-emitters and their identity: our approach is advantageous in highlighting the multilevel influences on primate vocal flexibility. Moreover, it provides evidence that some aspects of our vocal plasticity were already present in the lemur lineage.

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Categorical rhythms in a singing primate

Cited by 49 publications

References 11 publications

The Natural History of Musical Rhythm: Functional and Mechanistic Theories on the Evolution of Human Rhythm Cognition and the Relevance of Rhythmic Animal Behaviors

The Natural History of Musical Rhythm: Functional and Mechanistic Theories on the Evolution of Human Rhythm Cognition and the Relevance of Rhythmic Animal Behaviors

Syntactic modulation of rhythm in Australian pied butcherbird song

Parent-offspring turn-taking dynamics influence parents’ song structure and elaboration in a singing primate

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