Even if monkeys hear no evil, they may appreciate simple tunes.
Some tunes stick in one's memory, sometimes with remarkable persistence.
In laboratory experiments, even infants exhibit a keen memory for such songs. A dozen of these childhood classics prove as memorable to rhesus monkeys as they do to people, a new study finds. This represents the first well-controlled demonstration that any nonhuman animal perceives simple melodies, say psychologist Anthony A. Wright of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and his colleagues. It's anybody's guess why this ability evolved in monkeys as well as humans. Wright's group studied octave generalization, a critical facet of melody perception.