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Some people get chills or feel moved to tears when they listen to certain tunes, while others tend to have a less intense response to music. A new study suggests that your level of enjoyment of music may be partly fixed in your genes.
According to a study published March 25 in the journal Nature Communications, 54 percent of the differences in how people enjoy music can be attributed to their genetics. The researchers who conducted the study attribute the rest to environmental factors, such as growing up in a family where they played instruments or listened to music together, and other musical experiences in the past.
“This study confirms what many of us musicians have long suspected: Some people are simply predisposed to have a deeper connection with music,” Mitchell Hutchings, an assistant professor of vocal performance at Florida Atlantic University who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.
Using statistical modeling, the study also found that different genetic factors influence different aspects of musical enjoyment, such as how music affects a person's mood, the pleasure people get from moving to the music, or the bonds they form through shared musical experiences.
“The idea that different genetic pathways influence aspects such as emotional connection to music, dance, or playing with others also fits with what we see in real life,” Hutchings said. “For example, some singers are drawn to expression, others to rhythm, and others thrive in collaborative settings.” So those who make music are also drawn to the art for different reasons.
To study the role of genetics in music enjoyment, Giacomo Bignardi, a PhD student in cognitive neuroscience, and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands examined data from more than 9,000 twins aged 37 to 64. The data were extracted from the Swedish Twin Registry, a large medical research resource. In total, about 3,400 identical twins and 5,600 non-identical twins participated in the study.
Identical twins share nearly 100 percent of their DNA, while fraternal twins share about 50 percent. So comparing musical experiences between different pairs of twins allowed the researchers to assess the influence of genetics. If identical twins showed more similar levels of musical enjoyment than fraternal twins, that would indicate that genetics might play a role in this experience, the researchers suggested, and they sought to assess the extent of this genetic influence.
To measure enjoyment of music, the researchers used the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, which asks participants to rate how strongly they agree with 20 statements on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Some of the statements included: “Music calms and relaxes me,” “When I hear a tune I really like, I can’t help but tap or move to its rhythm,” and “When I share music with someone, I feel a special connection.”
On average, identical twins showed more than twice the similarity in their enjoyment of music compared to fraternal twins, suggesting that genetics do play a significant role in shaping how much people enjoy music.
However, one limitation of the study is the assumption that the twins had the same level of musical exposure because they grew up in the same household. Therefore, the researchers assumed that any differences in music enjoyment would be due to genetics rather than environmental factors.
However, the researchers acknowledged that this assumption is not always true. For example, one twin may seek more intense musical experience.
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