title: The Nature and Nurture of Melody: A Twin Study of Musical Pitch and Rhythm Perception.
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.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU), Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 1B, P.O. Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Seesjärvi
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU), Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 1B, P.O. Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland. teppo.sarkamo@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Teppo
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1470-4530
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Särkämö
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Eero
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vuoksimaa
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU), Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 1B, P.O. Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tervaniemi
authors.affiliation: International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS) and Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), Montreal, Canada.|Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Peretz
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Jaakko
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kaprio
mesh_terms: D003710:Demography; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009146:Music; D010898:Pitch Perception; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Environment; Genetics; Music perception; Pitch; Rhythm; Twins