title: Preference for consonant music over dissonant music by an infant chimpanzee.
abstract: It has been shown that humans prefer consonant sounds from the early stages of development. From a comparative psychological perspective, although previous studies have shown that birds and monkeys can discriminate between consonant and dissonant sounds, it remains unclear whether nonhumans have a spontaneous preference for consonant music over dissonant music as humans do. We report here that a five-month-old human-raised chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) preferred consonant music. The infant chimpanzee consistently preferred to produce, with the aid of our computerized setup, consonant versions of music for a longer duration than dissonant versions. This result suggests that the preference for consonance is not unique to humans. Further, it supports the hypothesis that one major basis of musical appreciation has some evolutionary origins.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, 6-19-1, Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8581, Japan. tasukunzz@gmail.com
authors.forename: Tasuku
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sugimoto
authors.forename: Hiromi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Noritomo
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nobuyoshi
authors.forename: Yasushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kiriyama
authors.forename: Hideko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takeshita
authors.forename: Tomoyasu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Kazuhide
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hashiya
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000523:psychology*