Subject: Re: Reality check From: Jan Schnupp <jan.schnupp(at)PHYSIOL.OX.AC.UK> Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 21:08:26 +0000This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------020100050807090600090102 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Zatorre wrote: > > The second point, which I would expect an undergraduate to be able to > point out (or else flunk my course), is that the cited study used no > control group other than no treatment. So the specificity of the > conclusions is, shall we say, a bit suspect. Isn't it a pity that mice have even worse (much worse, in fact) low frequency hearing than rats, and that there aren't many strains of inbred rats. It really wouldn't be difficult to design a properly controlled experiment where rodents could choose in which of a set of otherwise identical chambers they preferred to spend their time. In one chamber one could play Mozart, another Sex Pistols, in yet another white noise or silence, and one simply measures relative % time spent. And if different inbred strains showed systematically different preferences, one could start hunting for things like Brahms appreciation gene. (In fact, if any strains were found that preferred 12 tone music a la Schoenberg to other auditory offerings, then this type of analysis might even give valuable insights into the genetics of mental disorders) . Perhaps we should just digitally transpose music samples up in frequency to make them better matched to mouse audiograms and give it a go. I feel a grant proposal coming on... Jan --------------020100050807090600090102 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Robert Zatorre wrote: <blockquote cite="mid4.3.1.20050301141721.00ae8220(at)staff.mcgill.ca" type="cite"><font size="3"><br> The second point, which I would expect an undergraduate to be able to point out (or else flunk my course), is that the cited study used no control group other than no treatment. So the specificity of the conclusions is, shall we say, a bit suspect.<br> </font></blockquote> Isn't it a pity that mice have even worse (much worse, in fact) low frequency hearing than rats, and that there aren't many strains of inbred rats. It really wouldn't be difficult to design a properly controlled experiment where rodents could choose in which of a set of otherwise identical chambers they preferred to spend their time. In one chamber one could play Mozart, another Sex Pistols, in yet another white noise or silence, and one simply measures relative % time spent. And if different inbred strains showed systematically different preferences, one could start hunting for things like Brahms appreciation gene. (In fact, if any strains were found that preferred 12 tone music a la Schoenberg to other auditory offerings, then this type of analysis might even give valuable insights into the genetics of mental disorders) . Perhaps we should just digitally transpose music samples up in frequency to make them better matched to mouse audiograms and give it a go. I feel a grant proposal coming on...<br> <br> Jan<br> <br> </body> </html> --------------020100050807090600090102--