Screams in Pop Culture
We all know screams really well from horror films in a variety of ways, some iconic, some not. Perhaps film lovers may think of Psycho, Scream, and similar films. It is one of the easiest ways to tell if someone is in danger to other characters in the film, more often than not it is the stereotype of the female lead being in danger that alerts others to the threat or danger.
The signaling of danger holds true in real life as well, but also showing distress or if your baby needs to be fed or is being fussy, needs a diaper change. Nevertheless, in the different contexts if informs you of the situation.
The point is, scream tell a lot about ourselves and our way of communication. The trick is to puzzle out what the scream is telling us. A question researchers have undertaken.
The Study about scream
Current Biology featured an article today that was sent in to the journal back in March. The team of five researchers then focused their studies on the acoustics of scream and the signals it raises, the behavior it induces, and how the pitch affects our behavior and how we react.
Origins of the study
The study came about when one of the authors of the study’s postdoctoral students had new additions to their families. What initially was a round of sympathetic shoulders to cry and lament on about the work load of being a new parent turned into a science inquiry about the nature of communication in screams.
They then began analyzing various clips of screams from film, real life, etc. to find that the scream live in a rugged terrain in the sound world. In turn, while monitoring brain activity while people listened to brain activity, the sounds stimulated the amygdala in which the most terror inducing scream came from the roughest one.
The uniqueness of the study was not lost on David Poeppel, professor of the postdoc students, when he was asked about the study and commented on the fact that the range in which screams occur is something that is done purposefully biological for the purpose of using it only when we need to—which is why screams are integral to survival and trigger a fight or flight response.
