It has been over a week since we had any real science up in here, so this link comes at a good time.

This article from The Verge discusses a study where people are shown to have no emotional reaction from listening to music. In fact, when asked to bring music they liked, for the experiment, some of them didn’t even own any!

For “normal” people who feel things when they listen to music, this might seem like the most absurd thing ever. But it is not only a good reminder of how different people can be from our own experience — we also don’t know why the rest of us feel it, either. Yet. 

The test subjects were perfectly capable of hearing and understanding the music, and the were able to feel emotion from other rewarding situations (i.e. — a game involving money), but music just doesn’t seem to float their boats.

It’s important to understand that these people do not have any kind of “problem” or “condition” or “illness”. They just don’t really feel music.

Cool, huh?

Think about that next time someone doesn’t love your favorite band, or when they are deeply moved by Weird Al’s greatest hits and you’re not.