Unlike primates, who used screams to communicate only anger and fear, humans scream in at least six emotional dimensions: anger, fear, pain, pleasure, sadness, and joy - such as the screams of children when they see ice cream, a toy re etc.
"People share with other species the potential to signal danger when they shout, but they seem to be the only ones shouting to signal positive emotions such as extreme joy or pleasure," says Sascha Frühholz, lead author of a new study on screaming. , published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology.
What kind of shout do you think people would be better at deciphering? From which would they react faster?
If you choose alarming screams - such as anger, fear and pain - you would be wrong. Instead, the study found that people are quicker to respond to cries of pleasure or joy.
"The results of our study are astonishing. Experts usually assume that the primate and human cognitive systems are tuned specifically to detect danger and threat signals in the environment as a survival mechanism, but screaming communication is much more diverse in humans and this represents a major evolutionary step, "said Frühholz.
People seem to enjoy the sounds that scare them and the feelings they get from screaming - an example of this is the success of horror movies. However, they also "enjoy" the screams of surprise and pleasure and seem to be better at processing the latter type. At least so it turned out from the four experiments conducted in the study. The scans showed that the human brain responds more quickly and accurately to what Frühholz calls "non-alarming" or positive screams.
Why does this happen? Probably because humans have more complex social signs and situations to deal with than chimpanzees and other primates. In family / social life, for example, people may be more likely to hear expressions of pleasure, joy, and surprise than those of fear, and thus, they respond more quickly to those stimuli.
Source: CNN
