Learn about why you can have an emotional reaction to music even when it’s not being played; how people have been performing brain surgery for thousands of years; and why some bathroom light switches are outside the room.
Learn about why you can have an emotional reaction to music even when it’s not being played; how people have been performing brain surgery for thousands of years; and why some bathroom light switches are outside the room.
People can have emotional reactions to music even when it's not being played by Kelsey Donk
People Have Been Performing Brain Surgery for Thousands of Years by Reuben Westmaas
Why Are Some Bathroom Light Switches Outside of the Room? by Ashley Hamer
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/people-respond-to-music-even-when-they-cant-hear-it
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about about why you can have an emotional reaction to music even when it’s not being played; how people have been performing brain surgery for thousands of years; and why some bathroom light switches are outside the room.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Enjoying music is about a lot more than the music itself. I mean, you’ll probably enjoy a song more if it reminds you of high school, or if you can name all the band members, or if you just really have a thing for guitar solos (looking at you, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”). Well, a new study shows just how far those non-musical judgments can go. It found that people can have emotional reactions to music even when it's not being played at all.
For this recent study, researchers from Flinders [flin-ders, rhymes with “FIN”] University in Australia set out to test how these types of extra-musical associations influenced people’s emotional responses. They had participants simply read lyrics from songs in different music genres, with no music involved. But there was a twist: some of the genre labels were real, and some were fake. After reading the lyrics, the participants again had to name an emotional response. A lot of the time, the participants’ emotional responses depended on how the lyrics were labeled. In other words, people responded to the same lyrics differently when they were labeled as folk music than when they were labeled as hard rock — and those responses closely matched their responses to real musical examples the researchers played them at the beginning.
For example, consider these lyrics: “I wanted to love but I was afraid and wanted to save my heart / But love knows a secret fear that can kill your heart.” When lyrics like that were labeled as bossa nova music, people generally reported feeling joy, happiness, and excitement. When the lyrics were presented as hip-hop, on the other hand, people felt anger. And both genres made people want to dance, but with different emotions attached.
The research shows that music is more than just sound. When we think of a song, we draw up a whole lifetime of memories and feelings and associations and learning along with it. We’re responding to all of that, not just what we’re hearing in the moment.
That goes against the idea that music is a universal language that can be understood across generations and cultures. In fact, the researchers performed the same experiment on both Australian and Cuban participants, and found that these people from different cultures expected to feel different emotions from certain genres of music. Basically, the emotions we feel when we hear music are shaped by culture and history. They’re not universal. So the next time you hear a song, remember that you’re judging more than just the music. You’re bringing a lifetime of experience into what you hear.
Brain surgery is sometimes considered the pinnacle of modern medicine, so this next fact may come as a surprise: people have been performing brain surgery for thousands of years. Even more surprising? They've had a pretty decent success rate.
That’s right: scientists have found skulls with evidence of brain surgery dating from at least 5,000 years ago. Specifically, the skulls had evidence of trepanation [trep-pin-nation], a procedure that involves drilling a permanent hole into the skull. We know that at least some patients survived because their skulls show signs of healing. And it wasn’t just one group of people doing this: Paleontologists have found ancient skulls with evidence of trepanation all over the world, including Peru and Mexico, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa.
Why drill a hole in a skull? Well, most researchers think the earliest procedures were for religious or ritualistic reasons. That’s based on the fact that some trepanned skulls didn't have any kind of injury associated with them. But in other cases, the reasons are clearly medical: a skull might have a fracture and a trepanation hole, both partially healed. Scientists think these procedures were performed to treat things like head trauma, seizures, and severe headaches.
Scientists also know that these ancient surgeons practiced their skill a lot like modern surgeons do — just with less advanced equipment. They would use a hand drill or a cutting or scraping tool to practice on dead people, or even on live animals: scientists once found a 5,000 year old cow skull with a trepanation hole at a Neolithic site in France.
This all sounds pretty horrifying, but it was safer than you’d think. A 2018 report found that surgeons in the Inca Empire around 1400 CE were a lot better at brain surgery than Civil War doctors nearly 500 years later. Archaeologists confirmed this by comparing trepanned skulls from several different eras, which showed them how practice slowly made perfect. Skulls from 400 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. showed only about a 40 percent survival rate, gradually rising to 83 percent by 1400 C.E!
By comparison, Civil War doctors performing similar procedures were a lot closer to those 2,000-year-old success rates: about 50 percent.
So, hats off to those skillful ancient brain surgeons. Turns out that humans have been brilliant for a very long time.
Picture this: you’re in the bathroom, doing your thing, and suddenly, the lights go out. Because the lightswitch is OUTSIDE the bathroom, and some random person passing by flipped it off. Kind of annoying, right? And back in my day, we didn’t all have flashlights on our phones to guide us while we finished up. Which makes you wonder: why would someone put a light switch in such an inconvenient place in the first place? There's a good answer: It's to protect you. Long story short, electricity and water don't mix.
I mean, if a light switch is functional, it's connected to a live wire. In new buildings with professional electrical installation, there's a pretty low chance a light switch would shock you. But when you've got aging wires and DIY electrical setups, that chance gets higher. The metal screws on a light switch cover are especially liable to give you a jolt if a live wire wanders near.
We use metal for electrical wires because it's an excellent conductor — that is, when you send electrons through it, it doesn't put up much resistance. Water is also a great conductor. That means that if you're fresh out of the shower and standing in a puddle, a shock from a light switch can pass quickly through your body and into the puddle, which would form a circuit that electrocutes you in the process. And what happens next will SHOCK YOU.
As a result, a lot of building codes have stringent requirements for outlets and switches placed anywhere near water. Like, in the UK, regulations forbid electricians from placing light switches within arm’s reach of a shower or bathtub. In a small bathroom, that doesn't leave a lot of wall space for switches. So instead, a lot of UK bathrooms use a ceiling pull-cord. That keeps wet hands a safe distance from live light fixtures.
US requirements aren't so strict, which is why you're more likely to find interior light switches in American bathrooms. Instead of using distance to keep you safe, these bathrooms rely on independent circuits that are designed to shut off when there's a change in current, like what might happen if electricity were to surge through your body.
The next time you use a bathroom with an exterior switch, you can feel secure knowing that it's just there for your safety. Even if it might leave you peeing in the dark. [ad-lib: Definitely one of Bruce Springsteen’s less popular songs]
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Reuben Westmaas, and Ashley Hamer, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!