Scientists have found that humans are not the only mammals that can keep a beat. Studies have been conducted at the University of California, Santa Cruz by researchers and have discovered that sea lions possess the capability to conduct certain actions that were quite unexpected.
The University of California, Santa Cruz Cognition and Sensory Systems Laboratory team have been particularly studying one sea lion named Ronan. Ronan was born in the wild in 2008 and was discovered to not be capable of living in the wild. Rescuers had to save this animal from being stranded three times and was finally taken into captivity after its third. In 2010, Ronan joined the UC Santa Cruz’s Cognition and Sensory Systems Laboratory and was used for control studies that focused on the effects of a natural neurotoxin produced by algae on the California coast.
Currently, Ronan is being used for another study. This particular project is run by Peter Cook, a graduate student in psychology at University of California, Santa Cruz. Initially, this study was noted as a simple side project and was not to be highly publicized. However, the findings proved otherwise. Researchers on the team spent several months training Ronan to listen to musical beats.
According to the NBC news article “This Sea Lion Grooves to a Disco Beat”, Cook and the team started out with a simple rhythm track and used food as a reward for Ronan to follow through with the proper head-bobbing behavior. Eventually, Ronan was able to bob her head in time with a variety of tunes, including some that she was hearing for the first time. After observing that Ronan was capable of doing such a task, researchers’ now believe that other mammals out in the wild are also capable of performing at the same level as Ronan.
According to Cook, this study challenges scientists’ previous assumption that “the ability to move in time with a beat was connected to the ability for vocal learning and vocal mimicry.” Before this study, these skills seemed only possible by humans, cockatoos, parrots and budgies. This recent study has placed a new beginning for further studies on comparative psychology.
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