Abstract
Given the relationship between language acquisition and music processing, musical perception (MP) skills have been proposed as a tool for early diagnosis of speech and language difficulties; therefore, a psychometric instrument is needed to assess music perception in children under 10 years of age, a crucial period in neurodevelopment. We created a set of 80 musical stimuli encompassing seven domains of music perception to inform perception of tonal, atonal, and modal stimuli, in a random sample of 1006 children, 6–13 years of age, equally distributed from first to fifth grades, from 14 schools (38% private schools) in So Paulo State. The underlying model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. A model encompassing seven orthogonal specific domains (contour, loudness, scale, timbre, duration, pitch, and meter) and one general music perception factor, the “m-factor,” showed excellent fit indices. The m-factor, previously hypothesized in the literature but never formally tested, explains 93% of the reliable variance in measurement, while only 3.9% of the reliable variance could be attributed to the multidimensionality caused by the specific domains. The 80 items showed no differential item functioning based on sex, age, or enrolment in public vs. private school, demonstrating the important psychometric feature of invariance. Like Charles Spearman's g-factor of intelligence, the m-factor is robust and reliable. It provides a convenient measure of auditory stimulus apprehension that does not rely on verbal information, offering a new opportunity to probe biological and psychological relationships with music perception phenomena and the etiologies of speech and language disorders.
Highlights
Accurate measurement of music perception (MP) domains, such as pitch, rhythm, and meter is central to understanding the brain processes that underlie musical behavior
The secondary aim of this study is to show that the proposed battery performs across the population regardless of differences in common demographics unrelated to musical perception (MP)
1006 children were tested, 69.9% of whom were enrolled in public schools, 45% male, with approximately 200 children from each grade 1 through 5
Summary
Accurate measurement of music perception (MP) domains, such as pitch, rhythm, and meter is central to understanding the brain processes that underlie musical behavior. Such behaviors may have emerged early in primate evolution, since studies of pitch perception (e.g., the pitch strength of a harmonic tone dominated by resolved harmonics) suggest that marmosets and humans share a common pitch perception mechanism (Song et al, 2016). Cochlear implant users, and to some extent hearing aid users, struggle with complex auditory perceptual tasks, those requiring perception of pitch (Looi et al, 2015) and melodic contour (See et al, 2013). The perception of pitch contour in spoken language differs between musicians and those without musical training (Schön et al, 2004) and perception of musical pitch and temporal processing account for 34.5% of the variance on speech prosody test performance (Morrill et al, 2015)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
