--- title: The Evolutionary Reason We Love Big, Blood-Curdling Screams description: The arsenal of human screams has been honed over millions of years of evolution, with subtle nuances in volume, timing and inflection. canonical: https://time.com/5713431/history-human-screams/ author: The Conversation article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-31T14:48:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:30.116Z article:section: Science og:title: The Evolutionary Reason We Love Big, Blood-Curdling Screams og:description: Screams may seem simple, but they can actually convey a complex set of emotions og:url: https://time.com/5713431/history-human-screams/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Evolutionary Reason We Love Big, Blood-Curdling Screams twitter:description: Screams may seem simple, but they can actually convey a complex set of emotions twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Evolutionary Reason We Love Big, Blood-Curdling Screams > Sponsored content. 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[Watch (HLS stream): Are We In A Horror Film Renaissance?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qUXjGvdk.m3u8) (3:16)  _Published 2018-06-08. The horror-movie genre is on the brink of a renaissance. Or is it?_ by [Frank T. McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/the-conversation/) ## Frank T. McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation Oct 31, 2019 2:48 PM UTC by [Frank T. McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/the-conversation/) ## Frank T. McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation Oct 31, 2019 2:48 PM UTC Of all the sounds humans produce, nothing captures our attention quite like [a good scream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFqHyCoypfM). They’re a regular feature of horror films, whether it’s Marion Crane’s [infamous shower scream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WtDmbr9xyY) in “Psycho” or Chrissie Watkins’ [blood-curdling scream](https://youtu.be/llBbANmMc-o?t=95) at the beginning of “Jaws.” Screams might seem simple, but they can actually convey a complex set of emotions. The arsenal of human screams has been honed over millions of years of evolution, with subtle nuances in volume, timing and inflection that can signal different things. ## Ancestral cues Screaming can be traced to the prehistoric ancestors we share with other primates, who use screams as a key component of their social repertoire. Screams are especially important in monkey societies. Emory University [psychologist Harold Gouzoules](http://psychology.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/gouzoules-harold.html) is one of the world’s leading screaming experts. He’s been able to show how monkey screams convey a wealth of information. Different screams at different pitches and volumes can communicate different levels of urgency, such as whether a fight is simply about to take place or whether a predator is in the area. The grammar of monkey screams can be surprisingly sophisticated. African vervet monkeys, for example, have three main predators: leopards, snakes and eagles. Each type of predator requires different escape routes. To elude an eagle, the monkey must abandon wide-open spaces and seek shelter in dense shrubbery. But this would be exactly the wrong response if a snake were lurking in bushes. For this reason, [vervets have evolved a pattern of distinct screams](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347280800972) that not only act as a warning but also reveal the type of predator in their midst. Monkeys can even [identify other individual monkeys from their screams](https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20533). This is highly adaptive, because it enables the listener to assess the importance of the screamer to the listener, facilitating the protection of children and other relatives. ## Why screams of terror stand out Like monkeys, humans have the ability [to identify people they know by the sound of their screams](https://neurosciencenews.com/scream-identity-14380/). [Humans produce a range of screams as well](https://news.emory.edu/stories/2013/10/esc%5Fpsychology%5Fof%5Fa%5Fscream/campus.html): There are screams that reflect more positive emotions, such as surprise and happiness. And then there are screams of anguish, screams of pain and, of course, screams of terror. Screams can be described according to their place along an acoustic dimension known as “[roughness](https://www.insidescience.org/news/why-screams-are-rough-brain).” Roughness is a quality that reflects the rate at which a scream changes or varies in loudness. The more rapidly the loudness fluctuates, the “rougher” the scream. And the rougher a scream is, [the more terrifying it’s perceived to be](https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2815%2900737-X?%5FreturnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098221500737X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue). [Psychologist David Poeppel](https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2815%2900737-X?%5FreturnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098221500737X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue) looked at brain images of people listening to recordings of human screams and found that, unlike other human vocalizations, screams get routed directly to the [amygdala](https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/amygdala.htm), which is the part of the brain that processes fear, anger and other intense emotions. And among the variety of human screams, it is screams of terror that stand out most vividly. [Other unpleasant sounds](https://www.livescience.com/57106-why-fingernails-on-chalkboard-hurts.html), such as a baby’s cry and fingernails on a chalkboard, share some of the same features that make screams unpleasant and terrifying. ## The best screamers survived It makes good evolutionary sense for screams of terror to be the most attention-grabbing; these are the ones that most clearly warn of an imminent danger. Humans who couldn’t readily distinguish among different types of screams may not have responded with appropriate urgency in life-or-death situations. Over time, this would have diminished the frequency of their genes in the population. So we’re probably the descendants of individuals who were good screamers and were also good at reading the screams of their fellow humans. This may help explain the perverse joy we get by intentionally subjecting ourselves to scream-inducing experiences like horror movies and roller coasters. How better to celebrate the screaming success of our prehistoric ancestors? _This article is republished from_ [_The Conversation_](http://theconversation.com) _under a Creative Commons license. Read the_ [_original article_](https://theconversation.com/why-we-love-big-blood-curdling-screams-124148)_._ ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ SOUND ] The horror movie genre is on the brink of a rennaisance, or is it? In writer- director Ari Aster's Hereditary, Toni Collette gives a Terrific performance as an artist whose family is haunted by a particularly creepy curse. You might think you've seen this type of story hundreds of times before. But Hereditary is a well crafted horror picture that's hitting at just the right time. Unsettling in its arid, controlled creepiness, it's a movie about feeling small and inconsequential in the larger pattern of danger churning all around And like some other recent works of horror. Get out! Yo! Jordan Peele's Get Out, or A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski, hereditary works by building and sustaining a mood of dread rather than relying on jump scares or outright gore. In other words, Hereditary is part of a trend toward a more sophisticated kind of horror filmmaking than, say, the torture porn horror that dominated the scene through most of the early 2000s. Have we finally entered an error when horror can be Be taken seriously as a genre. [ MUSIC ] The problem with that argument is that it stems from the false assumptions that horror has never deserved to be taken seriously. Horror movies often speak of deeper anxieties in a culture. Sci- Fi horror films of the 1950s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Them, riffed on American unrest over nuclear experimentation and the threat of communism. Joseph Ruben's the stepfather from 1987, about a seemingly normal guy who murders his family because it fails to meet his perfectionist standards, is the quintessential Reagan era chiller, a parable about the illusory nature of order and prosperity. People often say I can't tolerate horror movies. What's happening? Because they're thinking of slasher films like Halloween or Friday the 13th, or sadistically violent films like Saw and Hostel. But what about Robert Wise's 1963 Shirley Jackson adaptation The Haunting? Which terrifies only by whispery suggestion? Or Alejandro Amenabar's bleak, elegant 2001 ghost story, The Others? Where's my daughter? Are you mad? I am your daughter. Then there's Dario Argento's outrageously opulent 1977, Suspiria. It's fuchsia blood splattered, art nouveau, bordello a goo goo esthetic is one of moviedom's great visual pleasures. Luca Guadagnino, director of Call Me By Your Name, clearly feels that way too. He's making his own version of the film set to be released later this year. So while this new wave of horror movies isn't necessarily breaking new ground, it does represent a shift. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. These filmmakers are operating at a high level of craftsmanship. They're more interested in teasing out subterranean fears than in grossing us out or being punishingly graphic. Saying I don't like horror movies is like saying I don't like love stories. You just haven't met the right one. Do you like scary movies? Uh- huh. Maybe at long last it's time to come back to the world of horror, to let yourself go and let yourself be scared. 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