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Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization USV Songs
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Universality and diversity in human song.

Samuel A Mehr1,2,3, Manvir Singh4, Dean Knox5

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Music is a universal human behavior, present in all societies. While its expression varies within cultures, core elements like tonality and associations with contexts like healing and dance show global patterns.

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Area of Science:

  • Ethnomusicology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Anthropology

Background:

  • Music is a pervasive aspect of human culture, yet its universal features and cultural variations remain incompletely understood.
  • Previous research has often focused on specific musical traditions, limiting a global perspective.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the universal and variable aspects of music across diverse global societies.
  • To identify commonalities and differences in musical behavior and structure worldwide.

Main Methods:

  • Compilation of an ethnographic corpus detailing musical behavior in a representative sample of world societies.
  • Analysis of a discography of audio recordings using machine summaries, listener ratings, and manual transcriptions.
  • Statistical analysis of ethnographic data and acoustic features to identify patterns.

Main Results:

  • Music, including song, is present in every observed society.
  • Musical variation occurs primarily along dimensions of formality, arousal, and religiosity, with greater differences within societies than across them.
  • Acoustic features predict musical context (e.g., infant care, healing, dance, love), tonality appears widespread, and rhythmic/melodic complexity varies, often following power laws.

Conclusions:

  • Music is a universal human phenomenon with both shared characteristics and culturally specific expressions.
  • The study provides a quantitative framework for understanding global musical diversity and commonalities.
  • Findings suggest underlying cognitive or biological factors may influence universal musical structures and functions.