Chimpanzees are unlikely to be fans of The Monkees – because music has no effect on their wellbeing, a University of York study has revealed.
Boffins from York’s psychology department installed a ‘chimpanzee jukebox’ for chimps housed at Edinburgh Zoo, which allowed them to choose between pop music, classical music and silence.
The great apes could choose from hits by Bieber, Adele and even Mozart, yet they did not display a preference for selecting any of them.
However, the primates were more likely to leave their enclosures when Justin Bieber was being played, than when slower classical music by Mozart was being played.
Researchers think that this might be due to a habit in older primates to drum against hollow trees to signify aggressive behaviour. Pop music with a fast beat might be mistaken for that display of aggressive behaviour, York scientists believe.
Dr. Emma Wallace, the author of the research, said: “These results suggest that music is not something that is relevant to captive chimpanzees and are supported by recent work with zoo-housed orangutans that were unable to distinguish music from digitally scrambled noise”.
The research, published in PLOS One, raises the possibility that musical appreciation is a uniquely human trait.