This is a scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

What does panic sound like?

Like that for sure, but also like this. And this. like that

but also like this and this. But maybe you already knew that

because a new study shows that humans are actually good

at identifying vocalizations that are emotionally intense, even when those

outcries come from other species. The findings are communicated in the proceedings of the Royal Society

B. It was Charles Darwin, who first mused about the evolution of emotional expression.

As he wrote in the descent of man,

All the air-breathing vertebrata necessarily possess an apparatus for inhaling and expelling air.

When the primeval members of this class were strongly excited and their muscles violently

contracted, purposeless sounds would almost certainly have been produced.

Now, if producing those seemingly purposeless noises turned out to be beneficial, by warning others of predators,

summoning protection, or enticing a mate, the behavior would persist,

and over time become selected for. Of course, for that to happen, the meanings behind those

utterances would have to be clearly understood.

To explore this question, researchers asked 75 volunteers to listen to vocalizations produced by

nine different species, from black-capped chickadees to American alligators.

The recordings included sounds made by animals when they were relatively relaxed,

like this hourglass tree frog, or in some way excited, say reacting to an aggressor or competing for a mate, like this

hourglass tree frog.

The listeners were then asked to identify which of the paired recordings from each species represented a sound of distress or emotional arousal.

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