WHY do people always want to get up and dance when they hear music? The
usual explanation is that there is something embedded in every
culture鈥攖hat dancing is a 鈥渃ultural universal鈥�. A researcher in Manchester
thinks the impulse may be even more deeply rooted than that. He says it may be a
reflex reaction.
Neil Todd, a psychologist at the University of Manchester, told the BA that
he first got an inkling that biology was the key after watching people dance to
deafeningly loud music. 鈥淭here is a compulsion about it,鈥� he says. He reckoned
there might be a more direct, biological, explanation for the desire to dance,
so he started to look at the inner ear.
The human ear has two main functions: hearing and maintaining balance. The
standard view is that these tasks are segregated so that organs for balance, for
instance, do not have an acoustic function. But Todd says animal studies have
shown that the sacculus, which is part of the balance-regulating vestibular
system, has retained some sensitivity to sound. The sacculus is especially
sensitive to extremely loud noise, above 70 decibels.
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鈥淭here鈥檚 no question that in a contemporary dance environment, the sacculus
will be stimulated,鈥� says Todd. The average rave, he says, blares music at a
painful 110 to 140 decibels. But no one really knows what an acoustically
stimulated sacculus does.
Todd speculates that listening to extremely loud music is a form of
鈥渧estibular self-stimulation鈥�: it gives a heightened sensation of motion. 鈥淲e
don鈥檛 know exactly why it causes pleasure,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut we know that people go
to extraordinary lengths to get it.鈥� He lists bungee jumping, playing on swings
or even rocking to and fro in a rocking chair as other examples of pursuits
designed to stimulate the sacculus.
The same pulsing that makes us feel as though we are moving may make us get
up and dance as well, says Todd. Loud music sends signals to the inner ear which
may prompt reflex movement. 鈥淭he typical pulse rate of dance music is around the
rate of locomotion,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite possible you鈥檙e triggering a spinal
谤别蹿濒别虫.鈥�