„Teil unseres biologischen Werkzeugkastens“: Neugeborene können den Rhythmus in der Musik vorhersehen, finden Forscher. Forscher haben herausgefunden, dass Neugeborene den Rhythmus in Musikstücken vorhersehen können, was Einblicke in eine grundlegende menschliche Eigenschaft bietet.

>Babies in the womb begin to respond to music by about eight or nine months, as shown by changes in their heart rate and body movements, said Dr Roberta Bianco, the first author of the research who is based at the Italian Institute of Technology in Rome.

>“Previous research has also shown that aspects of musical memory can carry over from the womb to birth,” she added.

>However, it was unclear how deeply different aspects of music were processed by such young brains. The study sheds light on this, suggesting newborns can detect and predict patterns relating to rhythm, but not melody.

>Bianco said previous studies suggested macaque monkeys also showed a greater sensitivity to rhythmic patterns than melodic ones.

>“Rhythm seems to be built on very ancient auditory abilities that we share with other primates, while melody appears to depend on human brain specialisations that are shaped by learning after birth,” Bianco said.

>“In other words, rhythm may be part of our biological toolkit, while melody is something we grow into. This [may] help to explain why melodies vary so much across cultures, whereas rhythm tends to follow more universal patterns.”

>Writing in the [journal](https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003600&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plos006) Plos Biology, Bianco and her colleagues describe how they used electroencephalography (EEG) to collect brain activity data from sleeping newborns fitted with earphones.