![]() ![]() Still, she continues, it’s difficult to know whether the animal is activated because it finds the music appealing or because it finds the music scary and wants to flee. Certain physiological tests, says Kriengwatana, can tell how “activated” an animal’s body is by measuring things like heart rate and blood pressure. “We know that, for example, when dogs are happy, they wag their tails,” Kriengwatana says.īut for creatures that are more distant from us and lack many shared behaviors, interpretation becomes more difficult. Some animals have been studied so much - or are simply so close to humans - that we can make a relatively educated guess about how they’re feeling. The last hypothesis, which researchers call “arousal modulation,” argues that music improves welfare by influencing emotions. And sometimes, if an animal is already overstimulated - say, by visitors constantly tapping on its enclosure at the zoo - it may not desire any additional sound. ![]() The second hypothesis deals with sensory stimulation: It states that music improves welfare because it boosts the complexity of an animal’s environment, though not all genres of music are perfect for every environment.Ĭalming music may benefit rowdy dogs at a shelter, while lab rats benefit from something a bit more stimulating. When meaningful sounds such as whale song, for example, are blocked by anthropogenic noise pollution, this can be incredibly harmful. Non-musical sounds, like white noise, can be helpful, too.īut be warned, notes Kriengwatana, that not all acoustic masking is inherently good. But a handful of studies have shown that music can reduce barking and other physical indicators of anxiety in this stressful setting. The first, which researchers call “acoustic masking,” argues that music improves welfare by blocking out sounds that are more stressful for animals.Īn animal shelter that Kriengwatana’s friend works at, for example, “is loud and the dogs are constantly barking,” she says. There are currently three main lines of reasoning, Kriengwatana says. How to Tell If Music Affects Animal Behaviorįor species that do respond positively to musical cues, it’s up to researchers to determine the mechanisms at work within their minds. Read More: Shh! These Eavesdropping Animals May Be Listening These may include the sounds that an animal uses to communicate with others of its kind - or the growls a predator makes. All animals’ brains and sensory systems (including ours) are naturally attuned to the sounds that are most meaningful to them. “ can only hear the highest frequencies in Mozart, so are they actually hearing Mozart?”īut don’t blame the rats. “If you play an animal a sound that isn’t within its range, of course it isn’t going to respond,” Kriengwatana says. Sometimes, a test subject can’t quite figure out what a researcher is asking for other times, it’s truly unable to recognize a sound. Not every creature is up to the task, however. Similar tasks enable researchers to piece together the range of pitches than an animal can hear. In that way, we can slowly piece together which elements of music that an animal is responding to. In her own work, she may train a bird to peck on, say, its right side if it perceives a sound pattern as regular - versus its left side if it perceives the sound as irregular. ![]() Though we don’t yet have the technology to monitor the brain activity of a freely moving animal, admits Kriengwatana, researchers can turn to behavioral tests instead. Read More: What To Do If Your Pet Is Struggling With Anxiety It first asks what animals actually hear when exposed to music, then applies this to specific welfare goals. In a paper published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science last year, Kriengwatana and her colleagues at the University of Glasgow propose an alternative research framework. ![]()
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