Genetic correlates of musical pitch recognition in humans

We used a twin study to investigate the genetic and environmental contribut ions to differences in musical pitch perception abilities in humans. We adm inistered a Distorted Tunes Test (DTT), which requires subjects to judge wh ether simple popular melodies contain notes with incorrect pitch, to 136 mo nozygotic twin pairs and 148 dizygotic twin pairs. The correlation of DTT s cores between twins was estimated at 0.67 for monozygotic pairs and 0.44 fo r dizygotic pairs. Genetic model-fitting, techniques supported an additive genetic model, with heritability; estimated at 0.71 to 0.80, depending on h ow subjects were categorized, and with no effect of shared environment. DTT scores were only weakly correlated with measures of peripheral hearing. Th is suggests that variation in musical pitch recognition is primarily due to highly heritable differences in auditory functions not tested by conventio nal audiologic methods.