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How a Californian sea lion made my day

© 2014 C. Reichmuth, NMFS marine mammal research permit 14535.
Please do not use photograph without permission.

It is around 11 AM when I arrive at the Institute of Marine Sciences, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, USA. I will meet with dr Colleen Reichmuth and her team, who kindly invited me to observe some of the running audition and animal cognition experiments they do with pinnipeds. Her lab is the only one of its kind in the world, and well known for its inventive and high-quality research with sea mammals, both in the lab and in the field. 

I'm especially interested in meeting Ronan, the Californian sea lion that lives here since she was 1 year old (now being 6 years of age). She became close to a celebrity after a study that was carried out by Peter Cook at Reichmuth's lab in 2012. Unfortunately, Cook left recently for a postdoc elsewhere, so I didn't expect to see Ronan performing her amazing skills. However, Colleen Reichmuth, Jenna Lofstrom and Andrew Rouse surprised me with a demonstration of the original setup as described in Cook et al. (2013)!

While Ronan didn't perform the experiment for more than a year, she was on top of it, to say the least. The sound of a metronome at different rates – from approx. 80 to 120 BPM– was promptly picked-up and synchronized to. Within two (or max. three) metronome clicks Ronan was in sync and sticked to the beat: Performing much better than the average human, I would say. Also with real music (the Boogie Wonderland example mentioned in an earlier blog) she had little difficulty to stay in sync with the beat of the music. After seeing Ronan perform, and in addition to the carefully controlled experiments presented in the 2013 paper that were convincing by themselves, there is no doubt whatsoever that this active animal is sensitive to the explicit or induced regularities in sound and music. The intriguing question that remains is: why do we (humans) share this capability with Californian sea lions, and not with other primates that are far more closely related?

After the demonstration I was introduced to Ronan. She behaved like a rising star: patiently posing and even presenting a kiss on my cheek! A human is easily cheated..., but she made my day.

N.B. The lab is currently exploring the vocal learning capabilities of Ronan in light of the vocal learning hypothesis that suggests that only animals with this trait are capable of rhythmic entrainment (see earlier entry). However, this has never been shown in Californian sea lions (Zalophus californianus) as yet. I'm sure more exciting papers from this lab will follow soon!

See also blog at Psychology Today.

 Cook, P., Rouse, A., Wilson, M., & Reichmuth, C. (2013). A California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus) Can Keep the Beat: Motor Entrainment to Rhythmic Auditory Stimuli in a Non Vocal Mimic. Journal of Comparative Psychology DOI: 10.1037/a0032345 

Nattevingerwerk? [Dutch]

NRC Handelsblad Opinie (20 mei 2014)

Afgelopen weekend verscheen er een column in het NRC met de titel Natte Vinger, via de sociale media aangekondigd als een “column over ons gretige geloof in de wetenschap” (NRC Handelsblad, 18 mei 2014). Met een aantal zaken in het stuk kan iedereen het eens zijn: het soms ten onrechte aannemen van wetenschappelijke ‘feiten’ die geen feiten zijn, bijvoorbeeld, is inderdaad betreurenswaardig. Waar het echter mis gaat is de dik aangezette teleurstelling van columnist Bas Heijne in de wetenschap zelf. Wetenschappelijke ‘feiten’ zouden nattevingerwerk zijn en ons valse, ongefundeerde hoop geven: “De hoop die de wetenschap ons biedt – het is bidden in de kerk, maar dan anders.”

Hier slaat Heijne de plank mis. Het mooie van wetenschap is nu juist dat je er niet in hoeft te geloven. Je kan de bronnen traceren, de onderbouwing checken en verifiëren, het experiment nadoen, etc. Dat Heijne teleurgesteld is als een wetenschappelijk ‘feit’ weerlegd wordt en een nieuw inzicht een eerder ‘feit’ falsificeert (onderzoekers van de Johns Hopkins universiteit lieten zien dat het antioxidant resveratrol in wijn en chocolade geen effect heeft op onze gezondheid), dan is hem de essentie van wetenschappelijk onderzoek ontgaan. Dat is jammer, want ook de journalistiek heeft een verantwoordelijkheid in het communiceren en evalueren van wetenschappelijke resultaten [zie tevens NRC Next, 3 oktober 2013]. Het pleit juist voor de wetenschap dat ze haar mening steeds weer wijzigt in het licht van nieuwe (en zelf-vergaarde) feiten; de uitkomsten zijn steeds weer te controleren. Wetenschappers die daar het handje mee lichten ondermijnen natuurlijk het vertrouwen in de wetenschap en dat is erg genoeg, maar een columnist die op grond hiervan suggereert dat wetenschap ons geen ‘evidence-based’ voortschrijdend inzicht verschaft, is ziende blind.

Henkjan Honing
Pim Levelt

[Zie NRC Handelsblad en NRC Next van 20 mei 2014]

What makes us musical animals? [Part 2]

Group photo of all participants (except Peter Tyack and Constance Scharff, who had to leave early) contributing to a Lorentz Workshop on Musicality in April 2014.

For me personally, it was simply a pivotal workshop. With over twenty international scientists and scholars (i.e. Judith Becker, Simon E. Fisher, Tecumseh Fitch, Bruno Gingras, Jessica Grahn, Yuko Hattori, Marisa Hoeschele, David Huron, Yukiko Kikuchi, Hugo Merchant, Bjorn Merker, Iain Morley, Ani Patel, Isabelle Peretz, Martin Rohrmeier, Constance Scharff, Carel ten Cate, Laurel Trainor, Sandra Trehub, Peter Tyack, Geraint Wiggins and Jelle Zuidema) interested in musicality, we succeeded in agreeing on a research agenda to study what makes us musical animals. A publication is expected to be out in 2015. But for now, I can only be exhilarated that this group of fine researchers share a sincere fascination for this topic. A photo impression of the workshop can be found here.

What makes music groovy?

©20140417 Volkskrant

Today PLOS ONE will publish an interesting study on rhythm, groove and syncopation that uses an often criticized methodology: questionnaire and web-based research (cf. Honing & Reips, 2008). However, this study is a good example of how an unspectacular method (compared to brain imaging techniques, elegantly controlled experiments or advanced computational modelling) can still be quite informative.

The paper takes advantage of people's intrinsic interest in rhythm, timing and what's often called 'groove', in combination with the sheer fun of participating in an online listening experiment that has to do with music (cf. Honing & Ladinig, 2008).

Based on sixty-six responses, the authors were able to extract an inverted U-curve for a music-theoretic measure of syncopation, a shape that was absent for an alternative, information-theoretic measure based on the acoustic quality of the soundexamples used (i.e. entropy). As such the study provides evidence that the theoretical notion of syncopation, as defined by Longuet-Higgins' L-model in the 1980s, might be an important component of 'groovyness': pleasure and dance-inducing aspects of many musics ranging from James Brown to Marvin Gay and from Funkadelic to Stevie Wonder.

The first author, Maria Witek (Aarhus University), encouraged me to mention that the questionnaire and all soundexamples are online. Feel free to take part.

[See also article in de Volkskrant and interview on Radio 1; both in Dutch]

Witek, M., Clarke, E., Wallentin, M., Kringelbach, M., & Vuust, P. (2014). Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music PLoS ONE, 9 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094446

Honing, H., & Reips, U.-D. (2008). Web-based versus lab-based studies: a response to Kendall (2008). Empirical Musicology Review, 3 (2), 73-77.

Honing, H., & Ladinig, O. (2008). The potential of the Internet for music perception research: A comment on lab-based versus Web-based studies. Empirical Musicology Review, 3 (1), 4-7.

What makes us musical animals?

The question that will be central in an (invitation-only) workshop that starts next week, will be: What makes us musical animals? The meeting, that is co-organised with Carel ten Cate (Leiden U), Tecumseh Fitch (U Vienna), Isabelle Peretz (U Montréal), and Sandra Trehub (U Toronto), took quite some of my attention in the weeks leading up to it and hence didn't write blog entries for a while... However, if you want to read some exiting new stuff see the references below. These are just a few examples of many recent papers that address what could be the basic components of musicality. More later.

Patel AD (2014). The evolutionary biology of musical rhythm: was darwin wrong? PLoS Biology, 12 (3) PMID: 24667562

Fitch, W. (2013). Rhythmic cognition in humans and animals: distinguishing meter and pulse perception Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2013.00068

Trehub, S. (2013). Music processing similarities between sleeping newborns and alert adults: cause for celebration or concern? Frontiers in Psychology, 4 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00644

See also some recent media attention related to this topic (In Dutch):

1. AMC Magazine (april 2014) | Govert Schilling [Issuu]
2. De Psycholoog (april 2014) | Geertje Kindermans [pdf]
3. NRC Handelsblad (januari 2014) | Hendrik Spiering [pdf]

Muziek is geen luxe... maar wat dan wel? [Dutch]

Vandaag verschijnt er een stuk in de Volkskrant (bijlage wetenschap) met als aanleiding de groeiende populariteit van het thema Muziek en het brein: de een na de andere lezing, cursus en workshop over dit onderwerp wordt aangekondigd, en enthousiaste wetenschappers weten prachtige verbanden te leggen tussen het brein en ons aller beleving van muziek. Dit alles in het kader van het Jaar van het brein.

Margreet Vermeulen vraagt zich af in het artikel: "Waarom zou muzikaliteit zijn aangeboren terwijl we best zonder kunnen - al denken veel mensen misschien van niet. Muziek heeft geen evolutionaire noodzaak, in tegenstelling tot andere plezierige zaken in het leven als eten en seks. Zonder muziek raakt de menselijke soort niet in gevaar. Waarom is muziek dan van alle culturen en alle tijden? Geen menselijke activiteit is zo alomtegenwoordig. Waarom is er vrijwel altijd muziek als mensen samenkomen om iets te vieren, te rouwen, te demonstreren en zelfs als ze ten strijde trekken? Wat doet een aria of smartlap in het brein en hoe wekken die emoties op? Worden we echt slimmer van muziek en kunnen we er ziekten mee te lijf gaan?"

Nu ziet het gros van het huidige breinonderzoek muziek vooral als een mooie toepassing: muziek zou ons slimmer maken, minder gestresst en we zouden er allerlei aandoeningen mee kunnen verhelpen. Prachtig natuurlijk, mocht dat echt zo zijn. Maar laten we vooral het omgekeerde niet vergeten: wat het brein ons over muziek en muzikaliteit kan vertellen. Dat brein is niet voor niets muzikaal...

Voor volledige artikel zie Volkskrant.

An inability to enjoy music?

Last week a number of papers appeared on musicality, music perception, and pleasure reactions while listening to music. Listeners that lack the latter are described in a paper by the group of Robert Zatorre and named music anhedonists. In a systematic study published online in Current Biology, the authors selected three groups of listeners from a large student population in Barcelona and ended up (using the Barcelona Musical reward Questionnaire) with three groups: a hyperhedonic (H-HDN), an average (HDN), and an anhedonic (ANH) group that has a self-reported low sensitivity to music (Mas-Herrero et al., 2014).

What the percentage of potential ANH listeners was in the student population is not reported, but it must be at least a few percent. So we're talking about quite a small group. The ANH group apparently can perceive (induced) emotions from music but has, as compared to the other two groups, considerably low (or no) pleasure responses to music.

While earlier studies showed that music can tap in into, or has a large overlap with the reward system that is also active for food and sex (orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, amygdala, insula, and thalamus; see Sescousse et al., 2013), there might be, according to the authors, individual differences in access to the reward system. However, the nature of these differences is unclear.

In addition, this week a study was published on the musicality of non-musicians contributing to the idea that a talent for music is more wide-spread than we might generally think (Müllensiefen et al., 2014). Or to say it in other words: ‘It doesn’t devalue great poets, writers, and orators to say that every human is a user of language, nor does it devalue great musicians to acknowledge that all humans are inherently musical.’ (Erin Hannon on Facebook, 2008).

More on these studies in NRC, Volkskrant and Wetenschap24 [Dutch].

Mas-Herrero, E., Zatorre, R., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Marco-Pallarés, J. (2014). Dissociation between Musical and Monetary Reward Responses in Specific Musical Anhedonia. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.01.068

Müllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Musil, J., & Stewart, L. (2014). The Musicality of Non-Musicians: An Index for Assessing Musical Sophistication in the General Population. PLoS ONE, 9 (2) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089642

Sescousse, G., Caldú, X., Segura, B., & Dreher, J. (2013). Processing of primary and secondary rewards: A quantitative meta-analysis and review of human functional neuroimaging studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37 (4), 681-696 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.02.002

Wel zin in seks en eten, maar niet in muziek? [Dutch]

Vandaag in NRC Handelsblad.

Zie ook Wetenschap24.
Zie ook Volkskrant.

Is er zoiets als efficiënt lummelen? [Dutch]

De afgelopen twee dagen was Tijs Goldschmidt op bezoek in Wassenaar op het Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS). We spraken over veel, heel veel zaken. Over lummelen, orka's, roodborstjes, makaken, salsa, seksuele selectie, en nog 111 andere onderwerpen. Als je een indruk wilt krijgen van Tijs' denken, lees dan vooral zijn net gepubliceerde verzameling essays onder de titel Vis in bad - simpelweg bevrijdend.

Hij schrijft hierover: ‘De kloof tussen mens en dier is geforceerd. Ik stoor me eraan dat de mens per definitie boven het dier wordt gesteld. De overgang tussen mens en dier ligt gradueel. Vind ik. Maar soms verander ik even van gedachten.’ Ik word daar, op een of andere manier, heel blij van.

Goldschmidt, Tijs (2014). Vis in Bad. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Athenaeum.