What’s So Special About Human Screams? Ask a Screamologist
15th May 2019
To study screams is to probe the fuzzy boundary that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is a way to explore our prelinguistic past. Although we are fully symbolic creatures today, on occasion a trace of our primal selves bubbles to the surface in the form of a scream. Understanding its characteristics could improve the treatment of nonverbal patients, help fight crime, or simply make movies more frightening. But first scientists need to explain what makes a scream, a scream.