Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report.

ABSTRACT: 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 a

SUBMITTER: Ozaki Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11095461 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature