Genetic and environmental determinants of musical ability in twins

Abstract

Analyses of musical ability data from the Loehlin and Nichols National Merit Scholarship study are presented. Musical ability is indexed by four measures: interest in a profession in music, performance in school, performance outside of school, and receiving honors in music. These variables pose a challenge for behavior genetic analysis since they do not conform to the assumptions of traditional linear models. For example, there is a dependent relationship between the honors and the performance variables; one cannot obtain honors without performance. Several methods were employed to deal with these relationships, and the following conclusions appeared regardless of the method used. First, twin correlations were always high, ranging from 0.44 to 0.90 in monozygotic (MZ) twins and from 0.34 to 0.83 in dizygotic (DZ) twins. Second, although there was evidence for heritable variation, the effects of common environment were almost always larger than the effects of heredity. Third, marital assortment was not of sufficient magnitude to account for these common environment effects. In the young adults in this sample, musical ability is influenced more by shared family environment than by shared genes.

White matter neuroplastic changes in long-term trained players of the game of “Baduk” (GO): A voxel-based diffusion-tensor imaging study

“…Historically, many debates have been hotly undertaken regarding the basis of exceptional talents in numerous fields, such as music, sports, mathematics, chess, and so on (Ericsson et al, 2009). In common parlance, talent has typically implied innateness, which was supported by genetic studies using large numbers of twin pairs about high-level cognitive abilities and exceptional performances in other areas (Coon and Carey, 1989;Haworth et al, 2009). On the other hand, many recent studies have asserted that adaptation to continuous and extensive practice, along with well-organized teaching and a supportive environment, is more critical to the achievement of expert performances than is activation of special genes (Ericsson et al, 2009).…”

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

“…Similarly, it is likely that in many cases parents transmit to their children a substantial amount of knowledge and motivation in skilled activities in a domain. In a recent study in behavioral genetics, Coon and Carey (1989) compared the music performance of identical and fraternal twins and found that the environmental correlations were always higher than the genetic ones. (Whether the same findings would emerge if the study were restricted to expert musical performance is unknown; given the low frequency of expert musicians, an appropriate study of twins would be nearly impossible to conduct.)…”

The genetics of music accomplishment: Evidence for gene–environment correlation and interaction

“…performance in a twin study (Coon & Carey, 1989), the finding of no meaningful resemblance in physical ability between Olympians and their parents in another study (de Garay, Levine, & Carter, 1974), and the finding that tennis performance in adolescents was largely determined by parental support in a third study (Schneider, Bös, & Rieder, 1993).…”