Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech: a registered report

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech: a registered report

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: 1) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and 2) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six pre-registered predictions, five were strongly supported: relative to speech, songs use 1) higher pitch, 2) slower temporal rate, and 3) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar 4) pitch interval size, and 5) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech

Does singing enhance cooperation more than speaking does? A global experimental Stage 1 Registered Report

The evolution of music, language, and cooperation have been debated since before Darwin. The social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality may have facilitated the evolution of group cooperation beyond the possibilities of spoken language. Although dozens of experimental studies have shown that synchronised rhythms can promote cooperation, it is unclear whether synchronous singing enhances cooperation relative to spoken language, particularly across diverse societies that differ in their musical/linguistic rhythms and social organisation. Here, we propose a Registered Report to test this hypothesis through a global experiment in diverse languages aiming to collect data from 1500 participants across 50 sites. The social bonding hypothesis predicts that cooperation will increase more after synchronous singing than after spoken (sequential) conversation or (simultaneous) recitation, while alternative hypotheses predict that song will not increase cooperation relative to speech. Regardless of outcome, these results will provide an unprecedented understanding of cross-cultural relationships between music, language, and cooperation