Abstract
The Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) is a recently developed measure of perceptual music skills which has been shown to have promising psychometric properties. In this paper we extend the evaluation of its brief version to three kinds of validity using an individual difference approach. The brief PROMS displays good discriminant validity with working memory, given that it does not correlate with backward digit span (r = .04). Moreover, it shows promising criterion validity (association with musical training (r = .45), musicianship status (r = .48), and self-rated musical talent (r = .51)). Finally, its convergent validity, i.e. relation to an unrelated measure of music perception skills, was assessed by correlating the brief PROMS to harmonic closure judgment accuracy. Two independent samples point to good convergent validity of the brief PROMS (r = .36; r = .40). The same association is still significant in one of the samples when including self-reported music skill in a partial correlation (rpartial = .30; rpartial = .17). Overall, the results show that the brief version of the PROMS displays a very good pattern of construct validity. Especially its tuning subtest stands out as a valuable part for music skill evaluations in Western samples. We conclude by briefly discussing the choice faced by music cognition researchers between different musical aptitude measures of which the brief PROMS is a well evaluated example.
Highlights
Perceptual music skills differ widely in the population: from amusic individuals who exhibit impaired music listening skills [1] to highly proficient people scoring highly on musical skill measures [2]
This publication is concerned with the psychometric evaluation of one measure for perceptual music skills which has already been adopted by researchers interested in music cognition [10]
The full PROMS, with which the brief version correlates at r = .95, has been shown to have convergent validity with other measures of music ability, i.e. it appears to measure the same concept as established music ability tests
Summary
Perceptual music skills differ widely in the population: from amusic individuals who exhibit impaired music listening skills [1] to highly proficient people scoring highly on musical skill measures [2]. There is growing interest in these inter-individual differences, partly because evidence is accumulating that musical and non-musical faculties are related. Music skills have been linked to native and non-native language abilities [3,4]. Progress in music cognition has been hampered by an absence of modern, objective measurement tools which are both fast as well as easy to administer and psychometrically validated. A variety of novel musical skill measures has been proposed to fill this gap [5,6,7,8,9]
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