Have you ever wondered why some songs touch our hearts while others barely reach our ears? It turns out that our taste in music may not just be a matter of personal taste or cultural background, but may also be genetically motivated.
This research involved more than 9,000 twins from the Swedish Twin Registry, which included around 3,400 identical twins and 5,600 non-identical twins. The importance of studying twins lies in their genetic makeup; identical twins have identical genomes, while non-identical twins share only about half of their genetic material.
This unique configuration allows researchers to better isolate and identify the effects of genetics on environmental factors, since all the twins were raised in the same house, thus sharing similar upbringing conditions.
Participants were asked to complete the Barcelona Musical Reward Questionnaire, which includes statements designed to assess the level of pleasure obtained from musical activities.
Statements such as "when I share music with someone, I feel a special connection with them" helped the researchers assess the emotional responses associated with musical pleasure. Another dimension of the study consisted of testing the twins' ability to distinguish between different musical elements, such as melodies and rhythms.
The analysis indicated that identical twins showed more than twice the similarity in musical appreciation characteristics compared to non-identical twins, details New Scientist.
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Interestingly, the study also suggested that liking music is not necessarily associated with musical talent, a trait previously linked to genetic factors. This distinction reveals that the pleasure of listening to music and the ability to perform or understand it may have different genetic origins.
The results suggest that genetic factors may play a crucial role in why certain sounds and songs resonate more with some individuals than others.
