page_title: Beat deafness
section_title: Beat perception in animals
hierarchical_section_title: Beat deafness / Beat perception in animals
caption_attribution_description: Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita), Risdon Brook Park, Tasmania, Australia
context_page_description: Beat deafness is a form of congenital amusia characterized by a person's inability to distinguish musical rhythm or move in time to it.
context_section_description: A research team led by Aniruddh D. Patel of The Neurosciences Institute concluded that sulphur-crested cockatoos have the ability to perceive the beat in music and are able to rhythmically move to the tempo of the music as it changes.  Only vocal learning species such as dolphins and parrots are hypothesized to have the ability to perceive beat.  This is because beat perception and movement rely on complex vocal learning which require motor and auditory circuits in the brain. Vocal learning and beat perception do some overlapping in the parts of the brain that account auditory and motor areas. There is no significant evidence for beat perception in nonvocal learning species such as dogs and cats. However, California sea lions, a nonvocal learning animal, have demonstrated the ability to perceive beats in music.
caption: Sulphur-crested cockatoos can detect the beat in music.
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