ORCID Profile
0000-0003-3421-9361
Current Organisations
Technische Universität Berlin
,
Goldsmiths University of London
,
University of Oxford
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-06-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41562-022-01359-X
Abstract: Moving in synchrony to the beat is a fundamental component of musicality. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study to identify common genetic variants associated with beat synchronization in 606,825 in iduals. Beat synchronization exhibited a highly polygenic architecture, with 69 loci reaching genome-wide significance ( P 5 × 10 −8 ) and single-nucleotide-polymorphism-based heritability (on the liability scale) of 13%–16%. Heritability was enriched for genes expressed in brain tissues and for fetal and adult brain-specific gene regulatory elements, underscoring the role of central-nervous-system-expressed genes linked to the genetic basis of the trait. We performed validations of the self-report phenotype (through separate experiments) and of the genome-wide association study (polygenic scores for beat synchronization were associated with patients algorithmically classified as musicians in medical records of a separate biobank). Genetic correlations with breathing function, motor function, processing speed and chronotype suggest shared genetic architecture with beat synchronization and provide avenues for new phenotypic and genetic explorations.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 23-10-2019
Abstract: The present study investigated how the gender distribution of the United Kingdom’s most popular artists has changed over time and the extent to which these changes might relate to popular music lyrics. Using data mining and machine learning techniques, we analyzed all songs that reached the UK weekly top 5 sales charts from 1960 to 2015 (4,222 songs). DICTION software facilitated a computerized analysis of the lyrics, measuring a total of 36 lyrical variables per song. Results showed a significant inequality in gender representation on the charts. However, the presence of female musicians increased significantly over the time span. The most critical inflection points leading to changes in the prevalence of female musicians were in 1968, 1976, and 1984. Linear mixed-effect models showed that the total number of words and the use of self-reference in popular music lyrics changed significantly as a function of musicians’ gender distribution over time, and particularly around the three critical inflection points identified. Irrespective of gender, there was a significant trend toward increasing repetition in the lyrics over time. Results are discussed in terms of the potential advantages of using machine learning techniques to study naturalistic singles sales charts data.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 30-11-2022
Abstract: What, if any, similarities and differences between music and speech are consistent across cultures? Both music and language are found in all known human societies and are argued to share evolutionary roots and cognitive resources, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music across languages on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyze a novel dataset of 300 high-quality annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of singing, recitation, conversational speech, and instrumental music from our 75 coauthors whose 55 1st/heritage languages span 21 language families to find strong evidence for cross-culturally consistent differences and similarities between music and language. Of our six pre-registered predictions, five were strongly supported: relative to speech, songs use 1) higher pitch, 2) slower temporal rate, and 3) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar 4) pitch interval size, and 5) timbral brightness. Our 6th prediction that song and speech would show similar pitch declination was inconclusive, with exploratory analysis suggesting that songs tend to follow an arched contour while speech contours tend to decline overall but end with a slight rise. Because our non-representative language s le and unusual design involving coauthors as participants could affect our results, we also performed robustness analyses - including a parallel reanalysis of a previously published dataset of 418 song/speech recordings from 209 in iduals whose 16 languages span 11 language families (Hilton & Moser et al., 2022, Nature Human Behaviour) - which confirmed that our conclusions are robust to these potential biases. Exploratory analyses identified additional features such as phrase length, intensity, and rhythmic/melodic regularity that also consistently distinguish song from speech, and suggest that such features also vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum in a cross-culturally consistent manner when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Further exploratory analysis suggests that pitch height is the only consistently sexually dimorphic feature (female singing/speaking is almost one octave higher than male on average), and that other factors such as musical training and recording context may also interact to influence the magnitude of song-speech differences. Our study provides strong empirical evidence for the existence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Manuel Anglada-Tort.