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Abstract Early home musical environments can significantly impact sensory, cognitive, and socioemotional development. While longitudinal studies may be resource-intensive, retrospective reports are a relatively quick and inexpensive way to examine associations between early home musical environments and adult outcomes. We present the Music@Home–Retrospective scale, derived partly from the Music@Home–Preschool scale (Politimou et al., 2018), to retrospectively assess the childhood home musical environment. In two studies (totaln = 578), we conducted an exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) and confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2) on items, including many adapted from the Music@Home–Preschool scale. This revealed a 20-item solution with five subscales. Items retained for three subscales (Caregiver Beliefs, Caregiver Initiation of Singing, Child Engagement with Music) load identically to three in the Music@Home-–Preschool Scale. We also identified two additional dimensions of the childhood home musical environment. The Attitude Toward Childhood Home Musical Environment subscale captures participants’ current adult attitudes toward their childhood home musical environment, and the Social Listening Contexts subscale indexes the degree to which participants listened to music at home with others (i.e., friends, siblings, and caregivers). Music@Home–Retrospective scores were related to adult self-reports of musicality, performance on a melodic perception task, and self-reports of well-being, demonstrating utility in measuring the early home music environment as captured through this scale. The Music@Home–Retrospective scale is freely available to enable future investigations exploring how the early home musical environment relates to adult cognition, affect, and behavior.
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Exploring the genetics of rhythmic perception and musical engagement in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study
Abstract Uncovering the genetic underpinnings of musical ability and engagement is a foundational step for exploring their wide‐ranging associations with cognition, health, and neurodevelopment. Prior studies have focused on using twin and family designs, demonstrating moderate heritability of musical phenotypes. The current study used genome‐wide complex trait analysis and polygenic score (PGS) approaches utilizing genotype data to examine genetic influences on two musicality traits (rhythmic perception and music engagement) inN= 1792 unrelated adults in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study. Meta‐analyzed heritability estimates (including a replication sample of Swedish individuals) were 31% for rhythmic perception and 12% for self‐reported music engagement. A PGS derived from a recent study on beat synchronization ability predicted both rhythmic perception (β= 0.11) and music engagement (β= 0.19) in our sample, suggesting that genetic influences underlying self‐reported beat synchronization ability also influence individuals’ rhythmic discrimination aptitude and the degree to which they engage in music. Cross‐trait analyses revealed a modest contribution of PGSs from several nonmusical traits (from the cognitive, personality, and circadian chronotype domains) to individual differences in musicality (β= −0.06 to 0.07). This work sheds light on the complex relationship between the genetic architecture of musical rhythm processing, beat synchronization, music engagement, and other nonmusical traits.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1926794
- PAR ID:
- 10403058
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 1521
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0077-8923
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 140-154
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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