Bad brains: some people are physically incapable of enjoying music

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/6/5477622/bad-brains-some-people-incapable-of-enjoying-music?utm_source=Current+SCL+Members+July+1st+2013+to+Jan+9th+2014&utm_campaign=4572b51f8d-Weekly_Wire_Test1_4_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ed69b3b311-4572b51f8d-105129385

By Arielle Duhaime-Rosson March 6, 2014

For most people, the mere suggestion that a favorite song fails to evoke an emotional response in another human being sounds preposterous. Sure, that person might not like that song as much as you do, but they'll definitely feel something — right?

Not necessarily, says Josep Marco-Pallerés, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Barcelona and lead author of a new study that explores why some people feel indifferent to music. "Music isn't rewarding for them, even though other kinds of rewards, like money, are," he says. "It just doesn't affect them."

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Researchers even have a name for the condition: "specific musical anhedonia." The term anhedonia is used by psychologists to describe a person's inability to derive pleasure from activities that most find enjoyable. But as the monetary-reward experiment indicates, this specific anhedonia only affects music perception.

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