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The Nature and Nurture of Melody: A Twin Study of Musical Pitch and Rhythm Perception

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Abstract

Both genetic and environmental factors are known to play a role in our ability to perceive music, but the degree to which they influence different aspects of music cognition is still unclear. We investigated the relative contribution of genetic and environmental effects on melody perception in 384 young adult twins [69 full monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, 44 full dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, 70 MZ twins without a co-twin, and 88 DZ twins without a co-twin]. The participants performed three online music tests requiring the detection of pitch changes in a two-melody comparison task (Scale) and key and rhythm incongruities in single-melody perception tasks (Out-of-key, Off-beat). The results showed predominantly additive genetic effects in the Scale task (58 %, 95 % CI 42–70 %), shared environmental effects in the Out-of-key task (61 %, 49–70 %), and non-shared environmental effects in the Off-beat task (82 %, 61–100 %). This highly different pattern of effects suggests that the contribution of genetic and environmental factors on music perception depends on the degree to which it calls for acquired knowledge of musical tonal and metric structures.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Anja Häppölä and Kauko Heikkilä for their invaluable help in data collection and Viljami Salmela for assistance on statistical analyses. Data collection of FinnTwin16 has been supported by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA-12502, AA-00145, AA-09203) and by the Academy of Finland (100499, 205585, 118555, 141054, 264146). Additional support for the present work was provided by the Paolo Foundation, Finland, and the Academy of Finland (AoF) Post-Doctoral (257077, 257075) and Academy Professor (265240, 263278) programs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU), Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 1B, P.O. Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Erik Seesjärvi, Teppo Särkämö & Mari Tervaniemi

  2. Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Eero Vuoksimaa & Jaakko Kaprio

  3. International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS) and Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), Montreal, Canada

    Isabelle Peretz

  4. Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

    Isabelle Peretz

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  1. Erik Seesjärvi
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  2. Teppo Särkämö
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  3. Eero Vuoksimaa
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  4. Mari Tervaniemi
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  5. Isabelle Peretz
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  6. Jaakko Kaprio
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Correspondence to Teppo Särkämö.

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Conflict of Interest

Erik Seesjärvi, Teppo Särkämö, Eero Vuoksimaa, Mari Tervaniemi, Isabelle Peretz, and Jaakko Kaprio declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Seesjärvi, E., Särkämö, T., Vuoksimaa, E. et al. The Nature and Nurture of Melody: A Twin Study of Musical Pitch and Rhythm Perception. Behav Genet 46, 506–515 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9774-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9774-y

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