Acclaimed Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov believed that aesthetic pleasure was a full-bodied experience. Nabokov, who was celebrated for his rich, evocative prose, got what he called a “telltale tingle” when he encountered masterful works of literature or art. He claimed these shivers up the spine were a sign of artistic sensitivity, even genius. But whatever pleasure Nabokov took in literary elegance didn’t carry over to music. Even though his son, Dmitri, was an opera singer, the elder Nabokov described himself as having “no ear” for music and reportedly found concerts boring and irritating.

Nabokov’s finicky tingle hints at a long-standing mystery: Why does a particular splash of paint on a canvas or musical phrase wreck one person while leaving another cold? Cognitive scientist Giacomo Bignardi has been working to untangle this scientific knot for years. Now new research from Bignardi and a team at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics suggests that at least part of the answer lies in our genetic inheritance.