Chimpanzees Prefer African, Indian Beats over Western, Japanese Music

Chimpanzees prefer Indian and African tunes over strong beats of Western music, a new study has found.

Researchers at the Emory University also found that chimpanzees opt for silence over Western beats. Previous research has shown that baby chimpanzees have an innate ability to recognize pleasant sounds.

The study team tried to explore whether other rhythms piqued chimpanzees. Related research on music and primates has focused on Western melodies. According to researchers - blues, pop or classical might sound different to casual listeners, but they all follow the same musical patterns. The team explored different acoustic patterns of African and Indian music.  

"Our objective was not to find a preference for different cultures' music. We used cultural music from Africa, India and Japan to pinpoint specific acoustic properties," said study co-author Frans de Waal, PhD., of Emory University. "Past research has focused only on Western music and has not addressed the very different acoustic features of non-Western music. While nonhuman primates have previously indicated a preference among music choices, they have consistently chosen silence over the types of music previously tested."

For the study, researchers conducted experiments on 16 adult chimps who were split into two groups. The chimps underwent tests at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of the Emory University.

Each morning for 40 minutes for 12 days, the chimpanzees were exposed to African, Indian or Japanese music. The music was played via a portable stereo placed near their outdoor enclosure. Researchers placed a second stereo, which didn't play any music, at a different location near the cage. The second stereo was used to rule out the possibility that the chimps were attracted to the object rather than the music.

Researchers played different types of music in a random order. The team observed each chimpanzee's reaction to the music.

The team found that chimps preferred African and Indian music over Japanese and Western music. According to researchers, Indian and African music have both strong and weak beats, whereas Japanese and Western music have regular strong beats.

"Chimpanzees may perceive the strong, predictable rhythmic patterns as threatening, as chimpanzee dominance displays commonly incorporate repeated rhythmic sounds such as stomping, clapping and banging objects," said de Waal, in a news release.

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.