Can you figure out what is the purpose of these songs? Take the test!

If you heard the song Rock-a-bye Baby or Are You Sleeping, chances are, you'd know in seconds it was a lullaby. But can you identify a lullaby from a completely foreign culture on the other side of the world? A song sung in a different language? What about a dance song, a healing song, or even a love song? 

Take the quiz and see for yourself! 

This is part of a new study out of Harvard University that suggests you have a universal translator for music in your head. No matter where it's from, or how it's produced, humans can understand the meaning and purpose of music. 

By recruiting 750 listeners from 60 countries, and playing brief 14 second-long snippets of different types of music from 86 different traditions, Dr. Samuel Mehr, Director of the Music Lab in the Department of Psychology, and Manvir Singh, a Harvard PhD student in Human Evolutionary Biology found that despite having no familiarity with the traditions of the music they were listening to, the volunteers were able, with remarkable accuracy, to identify the purpose of those random excerpts.

This suggests that not only is music universal among human cultures, but important signatures of emotional content and intent are universal as well. 

How did you fare?

For more on the samples you were tested on, listen to the researchers describe their work or test yourself more by participating in their study.