Music and Sociability in Williams Syndrome:

Introduction: Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurogenetic disorder associated with a mild to moderate cognitive impairment and a hypersocial personality, most notably an unusually high tendency to approach and interact with strangers (Järvinen-Pasley et al., 2008). Within the WS phenotype, increased sociability is accompanied by an interesting profile of music processing. Reports of increased emotionality in response to music are largely anecdotal in the WS literature. For example, individuals with WS demonstrate a high affinity to music, including a high engagement in musical activities (Don et al., 1999; Levitin et al., 2005), which may be linked to increased activation of the amygdala to music (Levitin et al., 2003). Despite enhanced neurological responsiveness to music, individuals with WS do not necessarily demonstrate enhanced music processing abilities (e.g., Deruelle et al., 2005). Interestingly, increased emotional expressivity has been reported to extend from social interactions (e.g., Reilly et al., 2004) to the experience of music (Don et al., 1999; Levitin et al., 2005a) in WS.