Genomic Imprinting Is Implicated in the Psychology of Music

Why do people sing to babies? Human infants are relatively altricial and need their parents' attention to survive. Infant-directed song may constitute a signal of that attention. In Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a rare disorder of genomic imprinting, genes from chromosome 15q11-q13 that are typi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological science Vol. 28; no. 10; pp. 1455 - 1467
Main Authors Mehr, Samuel A., Kotler, Jennifer, Howard, Rhea M., Haig, David, Krasnow, Max M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2017
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Child
Child, Preschool
Chromosomes
Discrimination
Evolution
Exaggeration
Female
Genes
Genomic Imprinting - physiology
Genomics
Heart rate
Heart Rate - physiology
Humans
Imprinting
Infants
Male
Middle Aged
Mothers
Movement - physiology
Music
Music - psychology
Perceptual sensitivity
Pitch
Pitch Perception - physiology
Prader-Willi syndrome
Prader-Willi Syndrome - genetics
Prader-Willi Syndrome - physiopathology
Psychology
Sensory perception
Young Adult
open materials
music
evolution
Prader-Willi syndrome
open data
parent-offspring conflict
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Why do people sing to babies? Human infants are relatively altricial and need their parents' attention to survive. Infant-directed song may constitute a signal of that attention. In Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a rare disorder of genomic imprinting, genes from chromosome 15q11-q13 that are typically paternally expressed are unexpressed, which results in exaggeration of traits that reduce offspring's investment demands on the mother. PWS may thus be associated with a distinctive musical phenotype. We report unusual responses to music in people with PWS. Subjects with PWS (N = 39) moved more during music listening, exhibited greater reductions in heart rate in response to music listening, and displayed a specific deficit in pitch-discrimination ability relative to typically developing adults and children (N = 589). Paternally expressed genes from 15q11-q13, which are unexpressed in PWS, may thus increase demands for music and enhance perceptual sensitivity to music. These results implicate genomic imprinting in the psychology of music, informing theories of music's evolutionary history.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797617711456