Monkeys have rhythm: Macaque and human tapping responses to musical excerpts

Synchronizing movements to music is one of the hallmarks of human culture
whose evolutionary and neurobiological origins remain unknown. The ability
to synchronize movements requires 1) detecting a steady rhythmic pulse, or
beat, out of a stream of complex sounds, 2) projecting this rhythmic
pattern forward in time to predict future input, and 3) timing motor
commands in anticipation of predicted future beats. Here, we demonstrate
that the macaque is capable of synchronizing taps to a subjective beat in
real music, and even spontaneously chooses to do so over alternative
strategies. This contradicts the influential “vocal learning hypothesis”
that musical beat synchronization is only possible in species with complex
vocalizations such as humans and some songbirds. We propose an alternative
view of musical beat perception and synchronization ability as a continuum
onto which a wider range of species can be mapped depending on their
ability to perform and coordinate the general abilities listed above
through association with reward.