The pursuit of science is usually an unending stream of embarrassments for the human ego. No, the sun doesn’t revolve around us. No, we’re not all that different from common animals. No, we’re not even the only humans. But, in some ways at least, our brains really are special.
A new study out this week in Nature Neuroscience shows one more way we really are different from some of our closest simian relatives: our mental capacity to appreciate harmonic sounds, or sounds with a discernible pitch (like a concert Bb). Specifically, it turns out the quality of pitch — how high or low a tone is — activates certain auditory regions in our brains, but not in macaque brains.
It’s a finding that not only boosts our fragile egos, but also suggests fundamental differences in brain structure between the species. The researchers suspect it may be a result of our ...
