THE HAGUE, April 24 — There’s good reason to believe that music is a language that everyone understands, but some people get more pleasure than others from listening to it. A recent study suggests that our taste for music may be inscribed in our DNA.
An international research team, led by Giacomo Bignardi of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, set out to determine the extent to which genetics influence musical enjoyment. To do so, they examined the level of pleasure experienced by over 9,000 twins, registered in the Swedish Twin Registry, when listening to music.
Some of the twins were identical, sharing the same genetic makeup, while some were non-identical, sharing only one half of their genome. Whether identical or non-identical, all the twins grew up in the same families. This made it easier for researchers to determine the influence of genetics on musical enjoyment.
Participants in the study were asked to fill out a questionnaire evaluating the pleasure they derived from listening to music. They were asked to state the extent to which they agreed with statements such as “when I share music with someone I feel a special connection with that person” and “in my free time I hardly listen to music,” reports New Scientist magazine.
The study findings reveal that genetics seem to play an important role in the degree of pleasure derived from music. Identical twins gave more similar answers to the questionnaire than siblings who share only 50% of their DNA. The researchers therefore suggest that, when it comes to music, we may be far more subject to the power of our genes than we might imagine.
To support this hypothesis, the researchers tested the participants’ ability to distinguish between different melodies, rhythms and pitches. Indeed, previous research has shown the existence of genetic predispositions to musical ability. Giacomo Bignardi and colleagues found that the pleasure of listening to music was not based on genetics alone. “The results do not support a single (genetic) dimension of musical enjoyment. Instead, these findings are consistent with musical enjoyment being built upon genetically interconnected yet partly distinct parts,” the researchers write in their paper, shared on the prepublication site, bioRxiv.
The findings of this study are surprising, but should be treated with caution. It should not be forgotten that our musical preferences are strongly influenced by our culture, and even our country of residence. However, they seem to be much more governed by our DNA than previously thought. Perhaps this explains why music can be so powerful. — ETX Studio
