德国研究人员发现，猴子敲击物体时，它们大脑中负责信息交流的部位开始活跃。这意味着灵长类动物的语言与非语言信息交流系统具有相同起源，也为探索人类语言与音乐起源提供了新的线索。
这一发现登载于美国《国家科学院学报》上。
奇妙现象
在自然界，猕猴可以通过晃动树杈或敲打枯木桩“演奏音乐”，大猩猩能通过拍打胸部或手掌“制造”旋律，而黑猩猩则有敲打树墩的“音乐天赋”。
德国蒂宾根市马克斯·普朗克生物控制论研究所科研人员注意到，恒河猕猴还能够使用人造物体敲打出有韵律节拍。比如，它们会猛烈摇动或者敲击、冲撞笼门，发出强烈而有节奏的声音，同时伴随着恐吓的叫声，摆出凶猛的架势并露出可怕的表情。
研究人员发现，只有占据统治地位的最强壮恒河猕猴才会有这些表现。这意味着这些声响是用来传递权力和地位等信息——猕猴敲击节奏越强烈，表示它越强壮，在群体中的地位也就越高。
源于大脑
由于2500万年前猕猴与人类有相同祖先，恒河猕猴敲击现象为研究人类大脑哪一部分负责音乐等非语言信息交流提供思路。
研究人员分别检测恒河猕猴听到敲击声和同类叫声时大脑的不同反应。他们发现，无论听到哪种声音，猕猴的大脑颞叶部分都被激活。在人脑中，这一部分是处理听觉信息及语言理解的关键部位。
“猕猴对敲击声和同类叫声的反应相同，”研究所神经科学专家克里斯托夫·凯泽告诉“趣味科学网站”记者，“因此，敲击现象是一种信息交流或表达方式，它在灵长类动物进化早期出现。”
音乐根源
“趣味科学网站”17日援引研究所研究人员的话说，猿猴敲击现象很可能是人类音乐创作的雏形。
“人类不仅依靠语言传递信息，还会使用各种各样的声音，比如用鼓掌表示喝彩，以敲门示意‘我要进门’等，击鼓声更是音乐的重要组成部分。”凯泽说。
“这些声音的相同之处在于，它们都是通过肢体重复运动创造出由周期性节拍组成的结构化音效。人类通常用击鼓构成的复杂节拍与音乐旋律相结合。众所周知，这种由击打形成的节拍在人类文化中十分普遍，在一些部族文化中也很常见。”
凯泽补充说，语言与非语言信息交流在猴脑中具有相同起源的事实，可以有效支持两者共同进化从而促使人类具备语言和音乐能力的观点。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PNAS October 1, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0909756106
Monkey drumming reveals common networks for perceiving vocal and nonvocal communication sounds
Ryan Remediosa, Nikos K. Logothetisa,b,1 and Christoph Kaysera,1
aMax-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrasse 38, 72076 Tübingen, Germany and
bDivision of Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Salient sounds such as those created by drumming can serve as means of nonvocal acoustic communication in addition to vocal sounds. Despite the ubiquity of drumming across human cultures, its origins and the brain regions specialized in processing such signals remain unexplored. Here, we report that an important animal model for vocal communication, the macaque monkey, also displays drumming behavior, and we exploit this finding to show that vocal and nonvocal communication sounds are represented by overlapping networks in the brain's temporal lobe. Observing social macaque groups, we found that these animals use artificial objects to produce salient periodic sounds, similar to acoustic gestures. Behavioral tests confirmed that these drumming sounds attract the attention of listening monkeys similarly as conspecific vocalizations. Furthermore, in a preferential looking experiment, drumming sounds influenced the way monkeys viewed their conspecifics, suggesting that drumming serves as a multimodal signal of social dominance. Finally, by using high-resolution functional imaging we identified those brain regions preferentially activated by drumming sounds or by vocalizations and found that the representations of both these communication sounds overlap in caudal auditory cortex and the amygdala. The similar behavioral responses to drumming and vocal sounds, and their shared neural representation, suggest a common origin of primate vocal and nonvocal communication systems and support the notion of a gestural origin of speech and music.
