Cross-cultural regularities in music and speech

Yuto Ozaki et al., Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report. Science Advances 10, eadm9797(2024). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adm9797

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 ana- lyzed 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 ...