The study wasn't about their response to music per say, but rather was about assessing their neurobiology and seeing how the brain specifically processes the information, both simple and complex, auditory and visual, to provide an insight into the evolution of such abilities. Seeing as the stem ancestor of birds and mammals is no longer around to study, the next best option is the crocodilian as they seem to have changed little over the last 200 million years so represent an animal that lived fairly close to the time of the reptile-mammal split, and also has very close evolutionary ties with birds (cousins), so likely share some common traits inherited from a common ancestor. Classical music was chosen for the role of complex audio stimuli because of its fast amplitude changes and broad spectrum frequencies, allowing for the investigation of how the brain responds to complex noise. It's a study on evolutionary biology, that provides interesting insight into when certain neurological features first arose, which ones are commonly inherited and which are independently evolved within their respective taxa.
The conclusion being many neurological features appear to have developed early in the evolution of tetrapods, meaning reptiles, mammals and birds are more alike than previously suspected.
The conclusion being many neurological features appear to have developed early in the evolution of tetrapods, meaning reptiles, mammals and birds are more alike than previously suspected.
