How much we enjoy music may partly come down to our genetic make-up, according to a study of thousands of identical and non-identical twins.
The pleasure people get from a tune has been linked to its effects on our . The degree of enjoyment can differ a lot from person to person, but little is known about why this is so.
To investigate the role of genetics, at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands and his colleagues looked at more than 9000 twins 鈥� about 3400 identical and 5600 non-identical 鈥� who are all part of the Swedish Twin Registry, a medical research resource.
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Identical twins share the same genome, while non-identical twins share only half their genomes, as is also the case with any non-twin biological siblings. All the study鈥檚 twins, who were between 37 and 64 years old, were raised in the same households and therefore had similar environmental exposures while growing up. This makes it easier to tease out genetic contributions.
To do so, the researchers first got the twins to complete the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, which assessed how much pleasure they get from music. For example, they were asked the extent to which they agree with statements such as 鈥�when I share music with someone I feel a special connection with that person鈥� and 鈥渋n my free time I hardly listen to music鈥�.
Then they used a statistical method to analyse the relative contributions of genetics and environmental factors to musical differences among the participants.
This showed that genetics seem to play a substantial role in influencing the degree of pleasure that music brings, with the identical twins being more than twice as similar in this trait than their non-identical counterparts.
In another part of the experiment, the researchers tested the participants鈥� abilities to distinguish between different melodies, rhythms and pitches, . They found that the apparent influence genetics has on enjoying music isn鈥檛 necessarily linked to musical talent.
Commenting on the overall study, at the University of Cambridge says: 鈥淭he finding is quite provocative, I think. It鈥檚 intuitive that musical ability might have a genetic basis; it provides an easy explanation for why some people seem to possess an innate 鈥榢nack鈥� for music that enables them to develop prodigious skills from a young age.鈥� It is perhaps less obvious that the pleasure of music listening is influenced by genes, 鈥渟o it鈥檚 interesting that the present research finds such an effect鈥�, he says.
The results add a new piece to the puzzle of why music can have such a powerful effect on certain people and 鈥渙pen up new possibilities for using inter-individual differences to gain insights into the biology of a key aspect of human behaviour鈥�, the researchers write in their paper.
But one scientist argues the role of cultural influences in musical enjoyment shouldn鈥檛 be understated. 鈥淭here could be an underlying genetic component to certain auditory capabilities and preferences, but there is a heavy cultural component to music evolution that is not addressed by genetics alone,鈥� says at Durham University in the UK.
bioRxiv
