It is essential to bear in mind that we people are fundamentally creatures, animals as it were. While belonging to a highly developed lineage, we remain squarely within the animal kingdom. Survival requires the basics for us all—water, sustenance, and a place to reside—yet we share additional commonalities.
Furthermore, human attraction extends to animal calls and signals used for mating, manifested through elements like the vibrant hues of a butterfly’s wings, the delightful fragrance of a blossom, or the musical output of songbirds. Findings detailed in research released today in the journal Science suggest that an affinity for certain animal vocalizations may be more prevalent than previously supposed.
Back in 1981, A. Stanley Rand, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), alongside research associate Michael J. Ryan, established that the choice of a mate by a female túngara frog (Engystomops pustulosus) is contingent upon the intricacy of the male’s vocalization. In this recent investigation, Ryan and his collaborators aimed to ascertain whether human preferences for particular animal sounds—including those captivating calls from male túngara frogs—align with the preferences exhibited by female animals.
“Having observed those established female preferences, which Stan and Mike [Ryan] uncovered when I began measuring them personally, I became captivated by the origin of these proclivities,” stated Logan James, a STRI research associate and the study’s principal author, in a prepared statement. “Moreover, since that original team published their initial results, we’ve learned that other creatures, including adversaries such as blood-feeding flies and bats that prey on frogs, also favor complex calls. This sparked our curiosity regarding the ubiquity of acoustic preferences.”
To conduct their investigation, the team employed a computer-based game to gauge human preferences for various animal sounds, utilizing an interactive online platform. Over 4,000 participants from across the globe were presented with pairs of sounds originating from 16 distinct animal kinds, encompassing crickets, zebra finches (Taeniopygia castanotis), and several species of frogs, and asked for their responses.
“In gamified citizen science, individuals volunteer for experiments simply because they find them engaging and entertaining,” commented Samuel Mehr, a co-author of the study and a cognitive scientist at Yale University’s Child Study Center. “This methodology is ideally suited for addressing questions in evolutionary biology where our objective is to examine phenomena across numerous species rather than just a select few. Our game allowed us to assess a wide range of human preferences concerning numerous different sounds.”
[Image caption: Three male zebra finches (Taeniopygia castanotis) perched, distinguished by orange beaks and black and white plumage. Image credit: Raina Fan.]
The auditory stimuli utilized originated from animals known to exhibit a bias toward one sound over the alternative. Following the audition of these juxtaposed sounds, individuals were prompted to articulate their preference for one sound or the other, mirroring the manner in which the animals producing and perceiving the sounds behave.
The research uncovered a significant correlation between human taste in sounds and that of animals. The more pronounced an animal’s preference for a particular sound, the greater the likelihood that a human participant would select that same sound as preferable. Furthermore, human subjects were swifter in choosing the more appealing sound. Both humans and animals displayed a strong predilection for sounds possessing lower frequencies and those featuring acoustic embellishments, such as the ‘trills,’ ‘clicks,’ and ‘chucks’ found in avian songs and amphibian utterances.
“Darwin previously remarked that animals appear to possess an ‘appreciation for the aesthetic’ that occasionally mirrors our own inclinations,” Ryan concluded. “Our findings suggest that Darwin’s observation holds true in a general sense, likely attributable to the numerous shared characteristics in our sensory systems compared to those of other creatures.”
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