Humans and Animals Share Aesthetic Preferences for Sound, Latest Research Suggests
New research indicates that humans and other animals may share surprisingly similar tastes in sound, echoing a hunch first proposed by Charles Darwin. A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience reveals that human preferences for animal mating calls often align with the preferences of the species themselves.
Darwin’s Hypothesis Revisited
Charles Darwin theorized that birds possessed “nearly the same taste for the lovely” as humans. This new research provides compelling evidence supporting that idea. The study, led by Dr. Logan James of McGill University, the University of Texas, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and senior authored by Dr. Sam Mehr of the University of Auckland and Yale University, demonstrates a correlation between human and animal preferences for vocalizations.
The Experiment and Findings
More than 4,000 people participated in a gamified experiment hosted on The Music Lab, a citizen science platform run by the University of Auckland and Yale University. Participants listened to pairs of mating calls from 16 different species – including frogs, birds, insects, mice, and monkeys – and selected their preferred call from each pair. A total of 110 sound pairs were evaluated.
Researchers compared human preferences to previously established animal preferences. For example, female túngara frogs in Panama typically favor complex calls over simpler ones, and humans demonstrated the same preference. On average, human listeners tended to agree with the preferences of the animal species, though variability existed across individuals, and species.
The correlation was strongest for calls with lower pitches and acoustic embellishments like trills, clicks, and chucks. Human preferences aligned with those of the Pacific field cricket, song sparrow, and hourglass treefrog, but diverged with the Gelada monkey and Zebra finch.
The Role of Shared Perception
“This result seems wild, and it is,” says Dr. Mehr. “The large-picture implication is of some universals across species in the appreciation of sound.” Dr. James suggests that shared aspects of perception may explain these similarities. “Across nature, the smells of flowers, the colors of butterflies, and the songs of birds didn’t evolve for humans, yet we find them beautiful. And it seems there are shared preferences we are only just learning about.”
The Amygdala and Social Motivation in Zebra Finches
Related research from Waseda University, published in the Journal of Neuroscience in May 2025, explores the neural basis of vocal imitation in zebra finches. The study found that lesioning the amygdala in juvenile zebra finches increased overall social motivation but disrupted selective song learning and their preference for specific tutors. [1] This suggests the amygdala plays a role in the social function of imitation.
Zebra Finches and Vocal Learning
Zebra finches are frequently used in neurobehavioral research, particularly for studying song development, vocal learning, and auditory processing. [1] Dr. Sarah Woolley at Columbia University’s Woolley Lab studies how auditory neurons and circuits extract information from vocal communication sounds. [4] Juvenile songbirds learn to sing by copying adult tutors, and their auditory perceptual skills are comparable to those of humans. [1]
Further Exploration
Interested in participating? You can make your own choices and contribute to the data collection at The Music Lab.
“From an aesthetics perspective, you wouldn’t really expect similarities here,” says Mehr. “So, it’s quite surprising that there are some cross-cutting, universal principles of what sounds nice across species, even if those principles are a bit hard to nail down quite yet.”