Nine different studies exploring animals' relationship to music

Researches have found that various monkeys have pet-like relationships with other species.

Noise pollution from humans and technology alters animal behavior

Animals may experience chronic stress and health issues due to noise pollution, which often interferes with their mating sounds. Due to traffic, nightingales sing louder on weekday mornings, and birds near airports start singing earlier to avoid upticks in takeoffs and landings.

Animal brain studies show brain activity similar to what we'd expect during dreams, but parsing whether animals are truly dreaming depends on how one defines dreaming and how scientists could prove it.

Can animals understand fairness?

Academics have long wondered if fairness is solely a concern of humans. In the largest meta-analysis to date, UC Berkeley researchers tested whether monkeys felt jealousy after receiving unequal rewards. The patterns showed low evidence for inequity aversion and instead frustration due to their expectations not being met by humans. These findings suggest that pursuing fairness and equality is uniquely human.

Humans are wired to pick up on each other's emotion, making laughter contagious

The reaction plays a key role in establishing interpersonal connections and relieving stress by releasing endorphins—feel-good hormones. A 2021 study identified at least 65 animal species that produce playful sounds, such as laughter.

Similarities between human and animal sleep

Have you ever noticed the wide-ranging differences in sleep between humans and animals? Sleep as a necessity is present amongst all animal species, but the specific patterns of sleep vary widely. Just think of the differences between how an owl, a whale, and a horse might sleep. This helpful resource from the Sleep Foundation explores the relations between human and animal sleep, complete with some fascinating statistics about sleep patterns throughout the animal kingdom!

Some animals possess sensitive hearing to help pinpoint prey and map the world

Bats and dolphins produce sound to reflect off surfaces and create a mental image of their surroundings. Owls' faces are dish-shaped to help funnel sounds to their ears, including that of mice moving along leaves or snow. Pinnipeds, such as seals and walruses, hear in both air and water.

Some animals may speak because of duplicated connections in the brain

Neuroscience suggests that connections responsible for motion made during embryonic brain development—such as those connecting hearing and movement pathways that allow reactive motion when started—are duplicated and connected to the larynx in some animals. This allows some mammals and song-learning birds to speak, provided they have the necessary physiological structures.

Playing music enhances the creation, storage, and retrieval of memories

Scans of the brains of individuals who play instruments have shown enhanced connectivity between multiple brain regions—visual, auditory, and motor cortices—and the corpus callosum, which connects the two brain hemispheres. These complex connections are strengthened through practice and then used in other activities that involve both logic and creativity. The brains of musicians also appear to give experiences multiple types of memory tags, such as audio, emotional, and conceptual, improving their processing.

Can music alter your memories?

You’re familiar with music’s ability to transport you to a past experience, but new research suggests that music can even alter how you remember your past experiences. A team of psychology researchers and music experts recently published a study that demonstrates how music can help shift our emotional recollection of a memory. Read to learn more about the study’s findings and how it could influence therapy practices.

50 years of research has focused on unraveling the relationship between music and frisson

One insight reveals that musical passages with surprising volume changes or unexpected harmonies and beauty are more likely to trigger frisson, perhaps because they upend listeners' expectations.

The adorable happiness of animals, in photos

Can animals experience happiness? And even if they do, do their bodies manifest happiness in similar ways to humans? Regardless, you surely will derive some happiness after viewing these thirty photos of a variety of animals appearing to smile big, beautiful smiles.

Music that builds to a crescendo and then resolves relieves stress more than listening to nature sounds.

Your favorite music can minimize physical pain, according to a 2025 study on how music can bring solace and address pain.

Study shows singing to babies improves their well-being

In a study of 110 parents and their babies across a span of four months, singing boosted infant mood and reduced fussiness. Follow-up studies are aimed at exploring whether singing can alleviate caregiver stress and postpartum depression.

The brains of people who experience frisson have unique neural pathways

A small 2016 study aimed to investigate the behavioral and neural differences between 10 individuals who experience goose bumps when listening to music and 10 who typically don’t. Scientists reported that individuals experiencing musical chills had greater white matter connectivity in specific auditory, emotional, and social processing areas of the brain.

Button boards may be the next step in human-canine communication

In a viral trend, dogs have been recorded using button boards to seemingly "talk" with humans. Researchers are divided on whether this means dogs have learned language or are engaging in sophisticated behavioral conditioning.

How can octopuses and MDMA help scientists understand the human brain?

Research shows that psychedelics may induce something called "critical periods" in the adult brain, which can make our brains more open to learning and changing, like they once were back in early childhood. Psychedelics similarly change how social creatures like octopuses behave, which demonstrates that these animals could help us better understand our own neurobiology.

Once whale songs were discovered, conservation efforts boomed

Until the 1950s, humans believed whales were mute. Once American underwater surveillance systems caught their sounds during the Cold War, the perception of the creatures changed, leading humans to campaign for whaling bans and long-term conservation efforts. These captivating whale songs can be heard throughout the ocean.

Some animals may anchor their brain cells to specific landmarks to determine direction

In a study of bats exploring a new area, specific sets of "head direction cells" were seen becoming active based on bats' orientation when moving, and this activity became more coordinated over time. Researchers suspect, like humans, bats and other animals establish this sense of direction based on movement relative to known points of interest.

The belief that classical music enhances intelligence is mostly incorrect

"The Mozart Effect" was based on a 1993 study by psychologist Francis Rauscher. Rauscher played a Mozart Piano Sonata for college students and then assessed their spatial reasoning, finding it improved for 10 to 15 minutes. The media ran with a simpler story: listening to classical music made you smarter.

Research shows that during total solar eclipses, some animals change their behavior to match their nighttime activities.

Why grocery stores play music while you shop

Grocery stores don't play music just for the good vibes. Store soundtracks have been proven to increase spending and improve customer experiences, especially if the music is upbeat. If the tunes are nostalgic for the stores' key demographics, it can help develop a store’s desired brand identity. This article from Reader's Digest details the many reasons behind this strategy.

Some animals seem to live well on little sleep

African bush elephants typically sleep for about 2 hours per 24-hour day, coming in well under a human's recommended seven-hour minimum. Other animals also appear to skimp on sleep, by human standards, without the consequences humans associate with being sleep deprived. This academic article details the sleeping habits of animals that appear to thrive on fewer than 40 winks and explores whether their sleep processes are just built different.

Humans are more genetically similar to cats than to dogs

While humans are not closely related to either cats or dogs from an evolutionary standpoint, scientists find that human and cat chromosomes are organized more similarly to each other than human and dog chromosomes, making cats a better model for studying human diseases.

Why parrots can talk like humans

Birds are built with incredibly versatile tracheas that can mimic all kinds of sounds from their environment. For parrots, that includes human speech. This brief video explains why birds, who have such distinct anatomies from humans, are somehow able to talk like them, anyway.

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

What to listen to if you want to focus

Have you ever put your headphones in, turned on your favorite playlist, and tuned out the rest of the world? That’s the power of music. It can improve your mood, reduce stress, and enhance focus. But what kind of music is best when working or studying? Check out this list for some suggestions.

Listen to the music David Attenborough recorded during his expeditions around the world

During this audio documentary feature, Attenborough plays musical performances by communities he encountered while producing natural history series, including Gamelan orchestras in Bali, palace music in Tonga, and Aboriginal didgeridoo players. With each recording, he provides anecdotes about when it was made, decades ago.

Stress affects different animals in different, but useful, ways

Animals feel stress when they experience actual dangers—such as a zebra chased by a lion. Humans often feel stress from worries, memories, or even thoughts about problems that may occur in the future. For this reason, animals tend to experience stress in short, intense bursts. Conversely, people can feel stressed for long periods, which can eventually be harmful to their health.

The secret life of urban crows

Cats began cozying up to humans around 10,000 years ago

The feline family is a hugely diverse group of lions, panthers, and kitties that have spread all over the world. The ancestors of the cats we love today helped solve rodent problems when humans first invented agriculture. They've been worshipped, loved, and scorned by humans since.

Inside the rise of focus music

Any casual YouTube or Spotify user has likely stumbled upon a playlist called "lo-fi beats to study and relax to" while searching for new music. Those "lo-fi beats" actually represent a growing genre of music called "focus music." Spotify, for instance. saw a 50% increase in listening time for focus playlists in its 2023 Wrapped report. This article explains why productivity tunes are on an upswing right now. Read it here.

What rodent cars can tell us about human joy

Neuroscientist Kelly Lambert and her colleagues taught rats to drive in a mini car. She writes her findings from this unconventional experiment, sharing that positive and fun experiences can sculpt the brain just as powerfully as stressful ones. Click to learn more about how the apparent joy of these rodents seemed to enhance their neuroplasticity.

Music may give some of us the chills and goose bumps—perhaps because it shocks us

The science is still unsettled about why music can trigger a chill down your spine, formally known as frisson, but one theory is that anything surprising to the nervous system—including sudden beat drops or unexpected harmonies—stimulates a type of alarm response that gives rise to this feeling.

There are at least 6 fascinating examples of mind-controlling parasites

Parasitic organisms—including flatworms and barnacles, not just fungi—can modify animal behavior. They can give rise to dancing fish, pulsating snails, suicidal rats, and more. Though some of these pathogens can sicken humans, there is no strong evidence that any can control human behavior.

Arnold Schoenberg expanded the confines of music by abandoning traditional chords and embracing dissonance.

Some animals, including certain tropical ants, have little or no microbial populations in their gut, upending the idea that all animals rely on this ecosystem to help maintain their health and proper functioning.

The reason some people love exercise may be because of their microbiome

Certain gut microbes in mice trigger dopamine release and drive motivation to exercise more. Scientists are investigating whether humans carry similar microbial patterns that influence our natural inclination towards movement, exploring how unseen microbial ecosystems may shape mammalian fitness behavior and reinforce innate reward pathways. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Studies of psychedelic use may help shed light on the nature of consciousness

The nature of consciousness—what it is, where it comes from, and how it manifests as moment-to-moment experience—remains under debate by scientists. Recent studies show psychedelics were found to boost low-frequency brain signals known as delta waves, a behavior also seen during dream states.

Animals get SAD—especially those in zoos, like pandas

Giant pandas in locations outside their evolved latitudinal range (from southeast Asia to northern regions around Beijing) exhibit more sluggish behavior, even when they were born there. Researchers have observed that similar sensitivities to "photoperiods" (or time with light) impacts many animals, including birds, insects, and our pets. (Nautilus imposes a metered paywall.)

Is the love song dying?

This visual essay, compiled using 65 years of industry data, is an entertaining trip through the history of pop music, exploring whether or not music has grown less romantic. But, at its heart, this isn't about the Billboard charts—it's about the many different ways we define romance.

Cats have a mutation that prevents them from tasting sweetness, and goldfish rank among the world's supertasters.

Baby monkeys chose a soft, warm doll over a wire one with food

Harry Harlow performed controversial experiments with newborn monkeys, separating them from their mothers and letting them bond with stand-in mother figures made from either wire or figures covered in cloth—both with monkey-like faces. The work investigated touch, bonding, and attachment, and found that monkeys overwhelmingly preferred the cloth dolls over the wire ones in various stressful situations.

In the 1950s, Alan Turing developed a mathematical model to explain why animals have stripes, spots, and other patterns based on differences in how quickly two interacting chemicals spread throughout a developing organism.

Listen to the earliest known recording of a whale song

A recording of a humpback whale was taken by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution near Bermuda in 1949, but forgotten for decades. When first captured, researchers didn't know what animal they were hearing, and therefore didn't catalogue the recording. The well-preserved audio was found by the team's archivist in 2025.

Listen to recordings of different fish species

Scientists have captured and curated this collection of species-specific recordings, helping us gain a deeper understanding of underwater ecosystems. Uncover their sounds, which include a lot of thumps, burps, and grunts.

Sleep research indicates dogs likely dream about their toys, food, and owners.

Why patterns in art are so pleasing

Repeated visual cues like shapes or lines derive from the brain's innate compulsion to identify faces, places, bodies, and more. With repeated shapes, the brain seeks out resolution to the subtle variations between them. See examples in art and music.

A brief history of dance music

Throughout history, crowded, dimly lit, sweat-filled, and loud spaces that have hosted dance music have mirrored and shaped social change. Tracing the evolution of dance and club culture from the 1950s to today reveals changes in youth culture and desires over time. Read this article to learn more about how dance floors have reflected societal movements.