Gene-environmental Interplay for Musical Expertise
Expertise development is shaped by a complex interplay between genetic predispositions and environmental influences. While intense, sustained practice is undoubtedly important, achieving musical expertise involves more than just dedicated practice, nor does practice have the same effect for everyone. Our team studies how genetic factors interact with environmental variables, such as access to practice, amount of practice and family-environmental circumstances to influence the development of music skills. By combining genetic data with environmental measures, our work seeks to uncover how these factors foster or limit the path to musical expertise. This research enhances our understanding of expertise acquisition while shedding light on broader questions about the interplay between nature and nurture in human development.
Publications
Mosing, M. A., Verweij, K. J. H., Hambrick, D. Z., Pedersen, N. L., & Ullén, F. (2024). Testing the Deliberate Practice Theory: Does Practice Reduce the Heritability of Musical Expertise?. Journal of Intelligence, 12(9), 87.
https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence12090087
Wesseldijk, L. W., Gordon, R. L., Mosing, M. A., & Ullén, F. (2023). Music and verbal ability - a twin study of genetic and environmental associations. Psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts, 17(6), 675–681.
https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000401
Yeom, D., Tan, Y. T., Haslam, N., Mosing, M. A., Yap, V. M. Z., Fraser, T., Hildebrand, M. S., Berkovic, S. F., McPherson, G. E., Peretz, I., & Wilson, S. J. (2022). Genetic factors and shared environment contribute equally to objective singing ability. iScience, 25(6), 104360.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104360
Bairnsfather, J. E., Ullén, F., Osborne, M. S., Wilson, S. J., & Mosing, M. A. (2022). Investigating the Relationship Between Childhood Music Practice and Pitch-Naming Ability in Professional Musicians and a Population-Based Twin Sample. Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies, 25(3), 140–148.
https://doi.org/10.1017/thg.2022.29
Wesseldijk, L. W., Mosing, M. A., & Ullén, F. (2021). Why Is an Early Start of Training Related to Musical Skills in Adulthood? A Genetically Informative Study. Psychological science, 32(1), 3–13.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620959014
Wesseldijk, L. W., Ullén, F., & Mosing, M. A. (2020). Does listening to music increase your ability to discriminate musical sounds? Personality and Individual Differences, 161, 1–4.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110001
Wesseldijk, L. W., Mosing, M. A., & Ullén, F. (2019). Gene-environment interaction in expertise: The importance of childhood environment for musical achievement. Developmental psychology, 55(7), 1473–1479.
https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000726
Mosing, M. A., & Ullén, F. (2018). Genetic influences on musical specialization: a twin study on choice of instrument and music genre. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 10.1111/nyas.13626. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13626
Mosing, M. A., Madison, G., Pedersen, N. L., Kuja-Halkola, R., & Ullén, F. (2014). Practice does not make perfect: no causal effect of music practice on music ability. Psychological science, 25(9), 1795–1803.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614541990
Researchers
