Song of a Mouse

            What is the difference between a call and a song?  Not calling your friend on the phone versus sitting down with a guitar and playing “Dust in the Wind”, but rather, the difference between the barking of a dog and the singing of a person.  In his article “Singing Mice May Join Human sand Songbirds As Vocal Learners,” Jason Goldman states that a call is an innate sound that an animal makes and a song is a collection of sounds that change in terms of acoustic qualities and syntax.   Humans are capable of producing both calls and songs, but what about other animals?  It has been believed for some time that many birds and some mammals are capable of producing songs, and now there may be one more little guy to add to the list. 

Researchers in 2005 argued that mice are capable of producing not only calls, but songs as well.  This seems a little odd: I have never heard a mouse produce more than a squeak, which seems to lack acoustic quality and syntax variation.  But when researchers looked beyond the spectrum of what the human ear can hear, they found that mice produce ultrasonic sounds. After analyzing the variation between these sounds, it appears that mice actually have some acoustic quality and syntax variation.

But what does this mean for the evolution of sounds, language, and music?  Mice could be like rock stars, singing to attract the opposite sex.  They are by no means the prettiest animals on the planet, so maybe a mouse that can woo his or her mate with a song is more likely to have a life partner.  It works for Gene Simmons, right?  Gary Marcus toys with this idea in his book Guitar Zero.  In this book, Marcus comes to the conclusion that the ability to produce music (a much more complex ability than the production of a song by a mouse) is not a sure fire way to attract a mate.  But maybe a mouse’s ability to produce a song reflects the health of that mouse.  Goldman cites Holy and Guo’s 2005 study that investigated the effect deafness has on a mouse’s ability to produce learned songs.  They found that if a mouse becomes deaf their songs diminish in quality. This phenomenon is also prevalent in humans; someone who becomes deaf will not sound the same as they did before.  As Goldman proposes, this is due to the fact that in order to maintain song quality one must be able to process auditory feedback.  It is possible then that when mice are looking for a mate, they try to find mouse that can sing a sweet song to prove that they are healthy.

The fact that mice need auditory feedback in order to maintain their songs parallels the fact that humans need auditory feedback in order to make captivating music.  As seen in Holy and Guo’s graph, three week after mice are experimentally made deaf the pitch and frequency of their vocalizations are affected (Goldman).  In Guitar Zero, Marcus strongly advocates the idea that people can be fantastic musicians without being able to read or write sheet music, as their ability to listen to music they make is what allows them to make captivating sounds that are both novel and familiar.  A person can make music without being able to read music, but they will have a tough time making music without being able to hear the sounds that they produce.  Hearing is vital for mice and humans to produce learned vocalizations.

            In no way is a mouse’s ability to sing at all close to a human’s ability to make music, but it is interesting to see the parallels between the two.  Mice and humans both rely on the ability to hear in order to maintain the quality of learned vocalizations.  More importantly, we can now do research with mice to possibly learn more about the evolution of music in humans.

Goldman, Jason.  "Singing Mice May Join Humans and Songbirds As Vocal Learners."  Scientific America, 10 Oct. 2012.  Web.  10 Oct. 2012. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/10/10/singing-mice-might-join-humans-and-songbirds-as-vocal-learners>.