The Association of Hearing Acuity, Diplacusis, and Discrimination With Music Performance

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the association, if any, between hearing efficiency and performance on selected measures of musical behavior. Hearing efficiency was divided into three categories—acuity, diplacusis, and discrimination. Possible associations among these three aspects were also investigated. Sixty undergraduate university students served as subjects: 30 music and 30 nonmusic majors. A battery of seven subtests was constructed to measure musical behavior. These subtests were excerpts from well-known standardized tests by Gordon, Gaston, and Seashore. Music test scores from the eight most efficient and eight least efficient subjects as determined categorically by acuity, diplacusis, and discrimination scores, were used for statistical analysis. The music test scores served as the dependent variable. A two-way analysis of variance was employed to test for significance of differences in music test scores between music and nonmusic majors and low and high hearing efficiency as categorized by the three hearing areas. It was determined that experiential factors did not have a significant biasing effect on the obtained music scores. The hearing acuity and diplacusis groupings did not produce a significant difference in scores for any of the seven measures of musical behavior for the main effect of hearing. Therefore, these two factors appeared to have little association with the music test scores. The discrimination grouping resulted in a significant difference between scores for the hearing effect only on the Seashore Pitch Test. Significant differences in scores were found between music and nonmusic majors in all groupings except Gordon's Harmony Test (acuity grouping) and all of the Seashore tests. No significant differences in hearing efficiency were found between the 30 music and 30 nonmusic majors. No significant relationship was found between hearing acuity and diplacusis or discrimination, but a significant relationship was found between diplacusis and discrimination.