Amusia — SYNC PROJECT

Amusia — SYNC PROJECT: "there are individuals in whom the mechanisms function in a way that even normal processing of musical sounds is not possible...called tone-deafness or amusia, typically affecting around 4 % of the population."

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Big new study finds "sex differences in music perception are negligible"

This is a fascinating finding for all humans, not just amusics. For a start, the scale of the study is impressive: "a test of music processing ability in 360,009 men and 194,291 women from 208 countries." And the findings favored the hypothesis of "no sex difference in general musical ability" (with a Bayes Factor of 0.6 for the statistically inclined).  As the authors put it: "These results suggest that it is unlikely that music evolved in the context of sexual selection." In other words, our musical ability did not evolve to enhance our appeal to the opposite sex, although this "is in contrast to music-related traits in non-human animals" and in contrast to some "other non-musical human traits."  The bottom line, based on this huge sample, is that musical ability offers, in terms of selection "no consistent advantage for either sex." And somehow, as an amusic, I find that surprisingly reassuring. It suggests that my inabilit...
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What's amusing about amusia?

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Welcome to 4Amusia.com , a place to find out more about something called amusia, a condition that can make it impossible to carry a tune or learn to play a musical instrument. Widespread ignorance of this condition—commonly referred to in derogatory terms like tone deafness or tin ears—can lead to social and emotional problems for those who have it. I know, because I have amusia. Amusia is defined as: "a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition" ( Wikipedia ). Some studies suggest that as many as 4% of people are born with an innate inability to recognize musical tones or to reproduce them. This is referred to as congenital amusia. In 2018, I discovered that my lifelong failure to sing or learn guitar—despite great effort—was due to congenital amusia, not some weird character defect (although you can still find music coaches who insist that amusiacs are just being lazy). When time permits, I pl...
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Revising the diagnosis of congenital amusia with the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia

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