2025/06/27 by Logan S. James, Sarah C. Woolley, Jon T. Sakata +3 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior #Marine animal studies overview
paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/2025.06.26.661759
openalex publication_date 2025/06/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Many animals produce sounds during courtship and receivers prefer some sounds over others. Shared ancestry and convergent evolution may generate similarities in preference across species and could underlie Darwin’s conjecture that some animals “have nearly the same taste for the beautiful as we have”. Here, we show that humans share acoustic preferences with a wide range of animals, that the strength of human preferences correlates with that in other animals, and that human responses are quicker when in agreement with animals. Furthermore, we found greatest agreement in preference for adorned, evolutionarily ancestral, and lower frequency sounds. Humans’ music listening experience was associated with preferences. These results are consistent with theories arguing that biases in sensory and cognitive processing sculpt acoustic preferences and confirm Darwin’s century-old hunch about the conservation of aesthetics in nature.