Is consonance a biological or a cultural phenomenon? [in 333 words]

Chick in consonance experiment (Chiandetti & Vallortigara, 2011).

The distinction between consonance and dissonance has long occupied a central place in the scientific study of auditory perception and music cognition. Consonant intervals are typically described as stable, harmonious, or pleasing, whereas dissonant intervals are often characterized as tense, unstable, or even harsh. Yet even these seemingly straightforward descriptions quickly lead to methodological debate. 

A central difficulty arises from the frequent conflation of “dissonance” with “roughness.” Roughness refers to a physiological effect caused by closely spaced frequencies interacting on the basilar membrane of the inner ear. This phenomenon is measurable, consistent, and largely universal across listeners. Consonance, however, is not reducible to physiology alone. Recent research emphasizes that consonance is a multidimensional construct, shaped by both acoustic properties such as harmonicity and by layers of cognitive and cultural familiarity (Lahdelma & Eerola, 2020). 

This controversy can be framed around two major questions (Harrison, 2021). First, do humans possess an innate preference for consonance over dissonance? Second, if such a preference exists, how might it be explained in evolutionary terms? A landmark study by McDermott et al. (2016) with the Tsimane’, an Amazonian group minimally exposed to Western music, found no consistent preference for consonant over dissonant intervals. Their conclusion was that what many listeners call “pleasant” is primarily shaped by cultural experience. 

This interpretation has been vigorously challenged. Bowling et al. (2017) cite empirical evidence from human infants (Trainor et al., 2002) and even non-human animals (Chiandetti & Vallortigara, 2011) that points toward at least some innate, hardwired auditory sensitivity. If so, consonance may reflect evolutionary selective pressures, possibly related to the spectral composition of human vocalizations and the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying pitch perception and auditory scene analysis. 

In the end, consonance appears to be neither purely biological nor purely cultural. Our ears detect roughness and harmonicity, but our minds interpret these sensations through cultural frameworks. What sounds stable in one tradition may sound unfamiliar in another. The consonance controversy thus highlights music cognition as an intricate interplay between biology and culture. 

N.B. These entries are part of a new series of explorations on the notion of Spectral Percepts (in 333 words each).

References

Bowling, D. L., Hoeschele, M., Gill, K. Z. & Fitch, W. T. (2017). The nature and nurture of musical consonance. Music Perception, 118–121. 

Chiandetti, C. & Vallortigara, G. (2011). Chicks like consonant music. Psychological Science, 22(10), 1270– 1273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611418244 

 

Harrison, P. M. C. (2021). Three Questions concerning Consonance Perception. Music Perception, 337–339. https://doi.org/10.1525/MP.2021.38.3.337 

 

Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2020). Cultural familiarity and musical expertise impact the pleasantness of consonance/dissonance but not its perceived tension. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 8693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65615-8 

 

McDermott, J. H., Schultz, A. F., Undurraga, E. A. & Godoy, R. A. (2016). Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception. Nature, 25, 21–25. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18635 

 

Trainor, L. J. & Unrau, A. (2012). Development of Pitch and Music Perception. In Human Auditory Development (pp. 223–254). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1421-6_8