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Last weekend (28 Mar 2011) a discussion arose about the response many people have to nails scratching on a blackboard and why that happens. Noises like that fall into the range of monkey alarm calls. When danger is near and the troop sentries call out the alarm others in the troop hear it and the fur on the back of the neck stands up. That becomes a visual cue to others and the troop responds to the warning or threat. Being related to other primates by sharing common ancestors we have retained some of these behaviors and physiological responses. A friend and I experienced this directly in Costa Rica. We positioned ourselves under a troop of spider monkeys to take photos. They didn't like this and the males started screaming at us as well as urinatingand throwing twigs and fruit at us. They also did this free fall where they would drop about 20 feet with limbs spread-eagled and would grab llianas and bungee back and forth, making eye to eye threats and screaming. We responded with that hair raising feeling on the back of our necks and took our photos. There is another ancestral response in human babies. Put something their palms and they grip. This comes from a time when we would carry our young on our hairy backs and they had to grab on. I have a beard and can tell you how effective that grip is. It can be painful, uh, to the beard wearer that is. Cheers, JEB
I recently got to witness another display of primal response to sounds. A group of us get together once a month to listen to an assortment of music. The woman who hosts these gatherings has two young shih tzus who typically show little interest in the music, preferring to amuse themselves by chasing one another around the house and occasionally mooching a spot in someone's lap.
At our January get-together, one of the selections I brought was a Chinese classical piece called "Ambush from Ten Directions". A few seconds in, there's some vigorous strumming on the pipa (an instrument that resembles an overgrown mandolin), at which point one of the dogs locked his eyes on one of the speakers and began barking at it. As I say, I'd never seen them show the slightest interest in any of the music before this. And then it hit me.
He's a shih tzu. Chinese. The music was triggering some kind of race memory.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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