The 2s rhythm of human speech appears in all animal communications

Some time ago I wrote an article (see this) motivated by the article “A widespread animal communication tempo may resonate with the receiver’s brain” by Balasubramanian et al (see this) about the finding that 2 Hz seems to define a universal rhythm in animal communications. As a matter of fact, there is an entire range of [.5,2] Hz involved with the communications.

Now I learned about an article “Rhythm Across Species: Situating Human Speech in a Comparative Framework” of Burchardt et al (see this) telling about animal communication at.5 Hz frequency. . The study, carried out in Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin e.V. (GWZ), has been published today in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

The popular article (see popular article gives the following summary about the findings.

1. The analysis focused on so-called inter-onset intervals : contiguous segments of speech including a following pause. This unit is also used in research into animal communication signals, thereby enabling a direct comparison between humans and animals. The data set comprised the Language Documentation Reference Corpus (DoReCo), which contains speech recordings from numerous, often under-researched languages, as well as various rhythmic metrics for animals already described in the literature.
2. The study analysed over 100,000 such intervals and revealed a strikingly similar duration of around 2 seconds across all 48 languages. This consistency held true regardless of language family or the individual characteristics of the speakers. A subsequent comparison with data from research into animal communication revealed that the human speech rhythm falls within the range also described, for example, the Cape fur seal, the brown meagre, or the skylark.
3. The research team cites physiological factors, such as breathing rhythm, which limits the length of contiguous intervals, as a possible explanation for the observed regularity. Limitations of working memory could also play a role. The results suggest that the fundamental temporal organisation of human communication may stem from mechanisms shared by humans and other animal species.

How the 2 sec rhythm appears in human brain?

Google Gemini informs that the 2 sec rhythm appears in several ways in the human brain. In neuroscience, a 2 sec cycle manifests in the brain in several distinct neurobiological and psychological ways: (see this and this).

1. Delta Waves and Slow-Wave Sleep. The absolute slowest major brainwave category is the delta band, which ranges from 0.5 to 4 Hz. The absolute lowest threshold of this band (0.5 Hz) is a 2-second rhythm. This rhythm dominates the neocortex during deep non-REM sleep and is critical for memory consolidation, neural tissue repair, and glymphatic waste clearance (see this, this, this, and this).
2. Infra-Slow Oscillations (ISOs). These fluctuations that occur at or below 0.5 Hz are known as infra-slow oscillations. These 2-second (and longer) rhythms act as a macro-level “pacemaker” for the brain. They modulate higher-frequency brain activity (like alpha or beta waves) and coordinate long-range communication between distant neural networks (see this, this, this).
3. The 2-Second Perceptual Window. Psychological and cognitive research shows that human temporal processing has a threshold of roughly 2 seconds. When we listen to a melody, track a train of thought, or rhythmically move, our brain binds sensory inputs into a singular, cohesive experience only if they occur within a 2-second window. If a gap exceeds 2 seconds, the brain’s working memory activation decays, and it treats the next stimulus as an entirely separate event rather than a continuation (see this, this and this).

The TGD view of .5 Hz and 2Hz rhythms

The rhythms in the frequency range [.5,2] Hz have been reported as a universal rhythm in animal communications and the 2 seconds and 2Hz rhythm seem to represent lower and upper bounds for the rhythm. The proposed explanation is in terms of physiological factors and certainly they are involved. TGD inspired quantum biology based on the new view of space-time, classical fields and quantum ontology suggests that the explanation is at a deeper level and physiology just adapts rather than determines. I have proposed a model for the findings about 2 Hz rhythm (see the article “Universal rhythm for communications between animals?” and the blog article.

The notion of magnetic/field body is in a central role in TGD inspired quantum biology. The magnetic body would act as controller of the biological body and communications and control would rely on dark photon signals with very large value of effective Planck constant so that the energies of photons even in EEG frequency scale would have energies about thermal energy, in particular, in the range of biophotons.

The monopole magnetic field with strength about .2 Gauss (2/5 of the Earth’s magnetic field strength) assignable to Earth, proposed by Blackman and christened by him as endogenous magnetic field is important. TGD suggests that also the octaves of this field and even the Pythagorean scale are involved so that the cyclotron frequencies associated with the monopole flux tubes give rise to a musical harmony. The TGD based model of the genetic code assigning to codons 3-chords defining what I call bio-harmonies, relies on this vision (see for instance this).

What is remarkable is that DNA DNA cyclotron frequency for $B_{end}=.2$ Gauss is 1 Hz. The frequencies .5 Hz,1 Hz and 2 Hz correspond to octaves of .5 Hz and 1 Hz is the geometric mean of .5 Hz and 3 Hz. If the bioharmony hypothesis is accepted also 2 octaves spanning Pythagorean scales are involved. Are the communications between animals based on singing! What is important is that the fundamental explanation would be at the level of DNA, more precisely “dark” DNA.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

For the lists of articles (most of them published in journals founded by Huping Hu) and books about TGD see this.