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Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech: a registered report

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Ozaki, Y., Tierney, A., Pfordresher, P. Q., McBride, J., Benetos, E., Proutskova, P., Chiba, G., Liu, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-0222, Jacoby, N., Purdy, S. C., Opondo, P., Fitch, W. T., Hegde, S., Rocamora, M., Thorne, R., Nweke, F., Sadaphal, D. P., Sadaphal, P. M., Hadavi, S., Fujii, S. , Choo, S., Naruse, M., Ehara, U., Sy, L., Parselelo, M. L., Anglada-Tort, M., Hansen, N. C., Haiduk, F., Færøvik, U., Magalhães, V., Krzyżanowski, W., Shcherbakova, O., Hereld, D., Barbosa, B. S., Varella, M. A. C., van Tongeren, M., Dessiatnitchenko, P., Zar Zar, S., El Kahla, I., Muslu, O., Troy, J., Lomsadze, T., Kurdova, D., Tsope, C., Fredriksson, D., Arabadjiev, A., Sarbah, J. P., Arhine, A., Ó Meachair, T., Silva-Zurita, J., Soto-Silva, I., Millalonco, N. E. M., Ambrazevičius, R., Loui, P., Ravignani, A., Jadoul, Y., Larrouy-Maestri, P., Bruder, C., Teyxokawa, T. P., Kuikuro, U., Natsitsabui, R., Sagarzazu, N. B., Raviv, L., Zeng, M., Varnosfaderani, S. D., Gómez-Cañón, J. S., Kolff, K., Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden, C., Chhatwal, M., David, R. M., Setiawan, I. P. G., Lekakul, G., Borsan, V. N., Nguqu, N. and Savage, P. E. (2024) Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech: a registered report. Science Advances. ISSN 2375-2548 (In Press)

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Abstract/Summary

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: 1) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and 2) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six pre-registered predictions, five were strongly supported: relative to speech, songs use 1) higher pitch, 2) slower temporal rate, and 3) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar 4) pitch interval size, and 5) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN)
Interdisciplinary centres and themes > ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) Research Network
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Perception and Action
ID Code:116114
Publisher:American Association for the Advancement of Science
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