Have you ever wondered what your music taste says about how clever you are? Well, some scientists have.
A 2026 study by psychologists in Germany and Switzerland tried to answer this question by comparing listening data from 185 adults with their scores from online tests of general cognitive ability.
They found that more intelligent participants tended to listen to songs with sad or emotionally complex lyrics.
There is no evidence that more intelligent people listened to classical music, or that less intelligent participants preferred pop or rock - Image credit: Dan Bright
This appeared to be independent of genre; there was no evidence that more intelligent people listened to classical music, for example, or that less intelligent participants preferred pop or rock.
