Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index Research Articles

Audiovisual integration in the McGurk effect is impervious to music training.

The McGurk effect refers to an audiovisual speech illusion where the discrepant auditory and visual syllables produce a fused percept between the visual and auditory component. However, little is known about how individual differences contribute to the McGurk effect. Here, we examined whether music training experience-which involves audiovisual integration-can modulate the McGurk effect. Seventy-three participants completed the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) questionnaire to evaluate their music expertise on a continuous scale. Gold-MSI considers participants' daily-life exposure to music learning experiences (formal and informal), instead of merely classifying people into different groups according to how many years they have been trained in music. Participants were instructed to report, via a 3-alternative forced choice task, "what a person said": /Ba/, /Ga/ or /Da/. The experiment consisted of 96 audiovisual congruent trials and 96 audiovisual incongruent (McGurk) trials. We observed no significant correlations between the susceptibility of the McGurk effect and the different subscales of the Gold-MSI (active engagement, perceptual abilities, music training, singing abilities, emotion) or the general musical sophistication composite score. Together, these findings suggest that music training experience does not modulate audiovisual integration in speech as reflected by the McGurk effect.

Corrigendum to Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI): Portuguese version and associations with socio-demographic factors, personality and music preferences

Corrigendum to Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI): Portuguese version and associations with socio-demographic factors, personality and music preferences

Musical Training as a Continuum: Relationships of Short-Term Memory and Musical Aptitudes

ABSTRACT Introduction This study recruited participants from a range of music training experiences and focused on short-term memory tasks to examine the abilities of trained, informally trained, and those without any music training. Methods Musicianship was measured with the Goldsmith’s Musical Sophistication Index (GMSI). The GMSI is a survey regarding how music is involved in a participant’s daily life. Music training was assessed through the music training subscale of the GMSI, which included a question regarding the years of formal training an individual had received. In two objective measures of musical ability, participants completed the Computerized Adaptive Beat Alignment Test (CABAT) and the Melody Discrimination Test (MDT). The participants also completed an audio and audiovisual span task to measure short-term memory. A correlational analysis was run among the general score of the GMSI subjective task, the GMSI subscales, the span task scores, and the objective measures of musical ability. Lastly, a hierarchical regression was used to predict short-term memory abilities. Results Results of a partial correlation analysis, controlling for the music training subscale, showed that the melodic discrimination task was associated with short-term memory, however, rhythm scores were not. Discussion This study suggested that there is no distinct advantage of formal training over informal training when studying musicians’ memory performance. Future research can benefit from investigating the characteristics of the full sample of participants, and not treating those without formal training as a homogenous group, devoid of any musical abilities.

The adaptation and validation of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) in Italian: The Gold-MSI-IT

The Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) measures a wide range of self-reported musical abilities and behaviors in the Western adult general population, regardless of musical expertise. This instrument has been validated in various languages, but an Italian version is lacking. The present study describes the Italian validation and adaptation of the Gold-MSI (Gold-MSI-IT) and investigates the effects of socio-demographic variables on scores of musical sophistication. Analyses of factor structure and internal reliability on an Italian sample ( N = 429, mean age = 31.08, SD = 11.68, 75.5% female) and analyses of test–retest reliability on a smaller sample ( N = 57, mean age = 34.68, SD = 10.80, 75% female) show that the Gold-MSI-IT conforms to a bifactor model, similarly to the original version, including an underlying General Musical Sophistication factor and five subfactors, and that our instrument has good internal consistency and good test–retest reliability. Additional tests showed gender differences in musical sophistication and that musical sophistication correlated with education but not with age. The study provides a reliable and stable tool to investigate individual differences in the Italian context and adds to our knowledge of musicality in the general population across countries.

Effects of musical mnemonics on working memory performance in cognitively unimpaired older adults and persons with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Episodic memory (EM) and working memory (WM) are negatively affected by healthy ageing, and additional memory impairment typically occurs in clinical ageing-related conditions such as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Recent studies on musical mnemonics in Alzheimer's dementia (AD) showed promising results on EM performance. However, the effects of musical mnemonics on WM performance have not yet been studied in (a)MCI or AD. Particularly in (a)MCI the use of musical mnemonics may benefit the optimisation of (working) memory performance. Therefore, in the present study, we examined the effects of musical presentation of digits consisting of pre-recorded rhythms, sung unfamiliar pitch sequences, and their combinations, as compared to spoken presentation. Furthermore, musical expertise was assessed with two perceptual tests and the Self-Report Inventory of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index. Thirty-two persons with aMCI and 32 cognitively unimpaired older adults (OA) participated in this study. Confirming and extending previous findings in research on ageing, our results show a facilitating effect of rhythm in both cognitively unimpaired OA and persons with aMCI (p = .001, ηp 2 = .158). Furthermore, pitch (p = .048, ηp 2 = .062) and melody (p = .012, ηp 2 = .098) negatively affected performance in both groups. Musical expertise increased this beneficial effect of musical mnemonics (p = .021, ηp 2 = .090). Implications for the future design of music-based memorisation strategies in (a)MCI are discussed.

Measuring musical sophistication in the Chinese general population: Validation and replication of the Simplified Chinese Gold-MSI

The Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index has been translated into several European languages. In the East Asian area, a traditional Chinese language translation is available. Due to differences in written characters and language use in various Chinese regions, a translation using simplified Chinese would reach a wider audience in mainland China and other regions. Our study, therefore, aimed to validate the simplified Chinese version of the Gold-MSI (Gold-MSI-SC) to replicate psychometric properties and factor structures of the Gold-MSI and to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and factors of the Gold-MSI-SC in a mainland Chinese sample ( N = 64,555). Following the translation guidelines for intercultural research, the Gold-MSI-SC self-report questionnaire, two music listening tests, and the Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence subscale (M-RI) were included in the main study together with the demographic and SES-related questions. All subscales of the Gold-MSI-SC showed high internal consistency (Cronbachs’ ɑ = [.80–.91]) and good test-retest reliability ( rtt = [.842–.935]). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the original bi-factor structure was replicated with satisfactory fit (root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .053 and comparative fit index (CFI) = .888). Correlations between the Gold-MSI-SC and the music tests, as well as the M-RI, demonstrated strong convergent and discriminant validity; structural equation models revealed negative relationships between age and the Gold-MSI factors, while SES positively correlated with all of the subscales. The Gold-MSI-SC has thus been shown to be a reliable tool in assessing multidimensional musical behaviors in simplified Chinese and in supporting the measurability of musical sophistication in different cultures.

Sensorimotor synchronization with visual, auditory, and tactile modalities.

While it is well known that humans are highly responsive to rhythm, the factors that influence our ability to synchronize remain unclear. In the current study, we examined how stimulus modality and rhythmic deviation, along with the synchronizer's level of musicality, impacted sensorimotor synchronization (SMS). Utilizing a finger-tapping task and three sensory modalities (visual, auditory, and tactile), we manipulated rhythmic deviation by varying the temporal position, intensity, and availability of cues across four deviation levels. Additionally, to determine our participants' musical familiarity and aptitude, we administered the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) questionnaire. We found that SMS to external rhythmic stimuli was significantly more precise for auditory and tactile than for visual sequences. Further, we found SMS consistency significantly decreased in all modalities with increased rhythmic deviation, suggesting rhythmic deviation directly relates to SMS difficulty. Moreover, a significant correlation was found between Gold-MSI scores and SMS consistency in the most rhythmically deviant level, such that the higher one's musical general sophistication score, the greater one's SMS ability. This held for all three modalities. Combined, these findings suggest that rhythmic synchronization performance is affected not only by the modality and rhythmic deviation of the stimuli but also by the musical general sophistication of the synchronizer.

Lyrics and melodies: Do both affect emotions equally? A replication and extension of Ali and Peynircioğlu (2006)

What factors affect listeners’ perception of the emotions conveyed by music? Ali and Peynircioğlu conducted a series of experiments in which listeners rated emotional judgments of the melodies and lyrics of songs. Here, we present a pre-registered replication and extension of their study with newly adapted stimuli, including several covariates using the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). Using a within-subjects design, we asked participants ( n = 104) to rate the emotions they perceived to be conveyed by unfamiliar happy, sad, calm, and angry songs, with and without lyrics, to model the extent to which each factor contributed to participants’ ratings. The results we obtained in our replication contradicted those of the original study, for several variables. The results of our extension, revealing a significant effect of the emotional engagement subscale of the Gold-MSI, indicate that emotion perception can and should be divorced from aspects of musical training. Taken together, the findings of our replication and extension highlight the value of replicating frequently cited studies in music psychology literature.

Predicting singing ability from parents’ parental support and openness in high school students: Using a self-adjusted Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index Inventory

Cognitive investment theory states that personality can predict individuals’ behavior patterns on one specific activity, and further predict a related ability. Besides, personality itself is predicted by environmental factors throughout individuals’ development. The present research explored if and how parental support predicts singing ability through openness and musical training, using a sample of high school students in mainland China. A measurement tool for acquiring the musical training and singing ability of targeted sample was lacking. Therefore, an adjustment study was conducted, which adjusted the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index–traditional Chinese version adjusted for Taiwanese (GMSI-TC), to obtain a suitable simplified Chinese version for the high school students (GMSI-SC-H). Thus, this research comprised two studies: Study 1 was an adjustment study, and Study 2 was a relation exploration study. Results of Study 1 showed that the GMSI-SC-H possessed acceptable reliability and validity on the general musical sophistication factor, Musical Training, Perceptual Abilities, and Singing Abilities sub-scales. The results of Study 2 showed that two mediating paths from parental support to singing ability were significant. Therefore, the conclusion was that parental support can predict singing ability through openness and musical training in a group of high school students. This research expands our understanding of links between personality and life outcomes.

Is musical engagement enough to keep the brain young?

Music-making and engagement in music-related activities have shown procognitive benefits for healthy and pathological populations, suggesting reductions in brain aging. A previous brain aging study, using Brain Age Gap Estimation (BrainAGE), showed that professional and amateur-musicians had younger appearing brains than non-musicians. Our study sought to replicate those findings and analyze if musical training or active musical engagement was necessary to produce an age-decelerating effect in a cohort of healthy individuals. We scanned 125 healthy controls and investigated if musician status, and if musical behaviors, namely active engagement (AE) and musical training (MT) [as measured using the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI)], had effects on brain aging. Our findings suggest that musician status is not related to BrainAGE score, although involvement in current physical activity is. Although neither MT nor AE subscales of the Gold-MSI are predictive for BrainAGE scores, dispositional resilience, namely the ability to deal with challenge, is related to both musical behaviors and sensitivity to musical pleasure. While the study failed to replicate the findings in a previous brain aging study, musical training and active musical engagement are related to the resilience factor of challenge. This finding may reveal how such musical behaviors can potentially strengthen the brain’s resilience to age, which may tap into a type of neurocognitive reserve.

Elements of musical and dance sophistication predict musical groove perception

Listening to groovy music is an enjoyable experience and a common human behavior in some cultures. Specifically, many listeners agree that songs they find to be more familiar and pleasurable are more likely to induce the experience of musical groove. While the pleasurable and dance-inducing effects of musical groove are omnipresent, we know less about how subjective feelings toward music, individual musical or dance experiences, or more objective musical perception abilities are correlated with the way we experience groove. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate how musical and dance sophistication relates to musical groove perception. One-hundred 24 participants completed an online study during which they rated 20 songs, considered high- or low-groove, and completed the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, the Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index, the Beat and Meter Sensitivity Task, and a modified short version of the Profile for Music Perception Skills. Our results reveal that measures of perceptual abilities, musical training, and social dancing predicted the difference in groove rating between high- and low-groove music. Overall, these findings support the notion that listeners' individual experiences and predispositions may shape their perception of musical groove, although other causal directions are also possible. This research helps elucidate the correlates and possible causes of musical groove perception in a wide range of listeners.

The Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI): A psychometric tool to assess individual differences in dance experience.

Dance has become an important topic for research in empirical aesthetics, social and motor cognition, and as an intervention for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. Despite the growing scientific interest in dance, no standardised psychometric instrument exists to assess people’s dance experience. Here, we introduce the Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI), a 26-item questionnaire to measure individual differences in participatory and observational dance experience on a continuous scale. The Gold-DSI was developed in three stages: In the first stage a set of 76 items was generated by adapting questions from the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Mullensiefen et al., 2014), and as part of a stakeholder workshop using a grounded theory approach. The second stage focused on item reduction. Using a large-scale online survey (N=424) , hierarchical factor analysis was used to fit a model comprising of one general and six secondary factors (28 items in total). In stage three, six new items were added to specifically capture individual differences in dance observation. We then collected data from two samples for final model estimation (N=127) and evaluation (N=190). The final version of the Gold-DSI comprises 26 items; 20 items relate to one general factor that captures experience in dance participation. This includes four secondary factors: Body Awareness, Social Dancing, Urge to Dance, and Dance Training. A further six items separately measure experience in dance observation. In sum, the Gold-DSI provides a brief, standardised and continuous assessment of doing, watching and knowing about dance.

Individual differences in musical ability among adults with no music training.

Good musical abilities are typically considered to be a consequence of music training, such that they are studied in samples of formally trained individuals. Here, we asked what predicts musical abilities in the absence of music training. Participants with no formal music training (N = 190) completed the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, measures of personality and cognitive ability, and the Musical Ear Test (MET). The MET is an objective test of musical abilities that provides a Total score and separate scores for its two subtests (Melody and Rhythm), which require listeners to determine whether standard and comparison auditory sequences are identical. MET scores had no associations with personality traits. They correlated positively, however, with informal musical experience and cognitive abilities. Informal musical experience was a better predictor of Melody than of Rhythm scores. Some participants (12%) had Total scores higher than the mean from a sample of musically trained individuals (⩾6 years of formal training), tested previously by Correia et al. Untrained participants with particularly good musical abilities (top 25%, n = 51) scored higher than trained participants on the Rhythm subtest and similarly on the Melody subtest. High-ability untrained participants were also similar to trained ones in cognitive ability, but lower in the personality trait openness-to-experience. These results imply that formal music training is not required to achieve musician-like performance on tests of musical and cognitive abilities. They also suggest that informal music practice and music-related predispositions should be considered in studies of musical expertise.

The Japanese translation of the Gold-MSI: Adaptation and validation of the self-report questionnaire of musical sophistication

This study presents a Japanese translation of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). The index consists of 38 self-report questions and provides a general sophistication score as well as subscale scores for Active Engagement, Perceptual Abilities, Musical Training, Singing Abilities, and Emotions. The validation of the translation with 689 native Japanese speakers indicated excellent internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the bifactor model structure formulated by the original study of Gold-MSI is maintained reasonably in our data. The strengths of the Gold-MSI self-report inventory are (1) it offers a multifaceted view of musical sophistication, (2) a subset of five subscales can be used to measure different aspects of musical sophistication independently, and (3) the ease of administration as it is a self-report questionnaire. In view of the fact that this inventory and its translations increasingly contribute to research on musical expertise, skills, and abilities, having a Japanese translation may enhance future research in these areas even further.

The taste & affect music database: Subjective rating norms for a new set of musical stimuli.

Music is a ubiquitous stimulus known to influence human affect, cognition, and behavior. In the context of eating behavior, music has been associated with food choice, intake and, more recently, taste perception. In the latter case, the literature has reported consistent patterns of association between auditory and gustatory attributes, suggesting that individuals reliably recognize taste attributes in musical stimuli. This study presents subjective norms for a new set of 100 instrumental music stimuli, including basic taste correspondences (sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, sourness), emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise), familiarity, valence, and arousal. This stimulus set was evaluated by 329 individuals (83.3% women; Mage = 28.12, SD = 12.14), online (n = 246) and in the lab (n = 83). Each participant evaluated a random subsample of 25 soundtracks and responded to self-report measures of mood and taste preferences, as well as the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). Each soundtrack was evaluated by 68 to 97 participants (Mdn = 83), and descriptive results (means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals) are available as supplemental material at osf.io/2cqa5 . Significant correlations between taste correspondences and emotional/affective dimensions were observed (e.g., between sweetness ratings and pleasant emotions). Sex, age, musical sophistication, and basic taste preferences presented few, small to medium associations with the evaluations of the stimuli. Overall, these results suggest that the new Taste & Affect Music Database is a relevant resource for research and intervention with musical stimuli in the context of crossmodal taste perception and other affective, cognitive, and behavioral domains.

A specific relationship between musical sophistication and auditory working memory

Previous studies have found conflicting results between individual measures related to music and fundamental aspects of auditory perception and cognition. The results have been difficult to compare because of different musical measures being used and lack of uniformity in the auditory perceptual and cognitive measures. In this study we used a general construct of musicianship, musical sophistication, that can be applied to populations with widely different backgrounds. We investigated the relationship between musical sophistication and measures of perception and working memory for sound by using a task suitable to measure both. We related scores from the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index to performance on tests of perception and working memory for two acoustic features—frequency and amplitude modulation. The data show that musical sophistication scores are best related to working memory for frequency in an analysis that accounts for age and non-verbal intelligence. Musical sophistication was not significantly associated with working memory for amplitude modulation rate or with the perception of either acoustic feature. The work supports a specific association between musical sophistication and working memory for sound frequency.

Contributed Session II: Sensorimotor Synchronization with Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Modalities

While it is well known that humans are highly responsive to musical rhythm, the factors that influence our innate ability to synchronize remain unclear. In the current study, we examined how stimulus complexity and modality, along with the synchronizer's level of musicality, impacted sustained sensorimotor synchronization (SMS). Utilizing a finger-tapping task and three sensory modalities (visual, auditory, and tactile), we manipulated rhythmic complexity by varying the location and availability of temporal cues across four conditions. Additionally, to determine our participants' (n = 30) musical experience and aptitude, we administered the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) questionnaire. We found that SMS to external rhythmic stimuli was significantly more precise for auditory and tactile than for visual sequences. Further, we found SMS precision significantly decreased in all modalities as rhythmic complexity increased, suggesting rhythmic complexity directly relates to SMS difficulty. Moreover, a significant correlation was found between Gold-MSI scores and SMS accuracy in the most rhythmically complex condition, such that the higher one's musicality score, the greater one's accuracy. This held for all three modalities. Combined, these findings suggest that rhythmic synchronization performance is affected not only by the modality and complexity of the rhythmic stimuli but also by the musicality of the synchronizer.

Musical Sophistication and Speech Auditory-Motor Coupling: Easy Tests for Quick Answers.

Musical training enhances auditory-motor cortex coupling, which in turn facilitates music and speech perception. How tightly the temporal processing of music and speech are intertwined is a topic of current research. We investigated the relationship between musical sophistication (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication index, Gold-MSI) and spontaneous speech-to-speech synchronization behavior as an indirect measure of speech auditory-motor cortex coupling strength. In a group of participants (n = 196), we tested whether the outcome of the spontaneous speech-to-speech synchronization test (SSS-test) can be inferred from self-reported musical sophistication. Participants were classified as high (HIGHs) or low (LOWs) synchronizers according to the SSS-test. HIGHs scored higher than LOWs on all Gold-MSI subscales (General Score, Active Engagement, Musical Perception, Musical Training, Singing Skills), but the Emotional Attachment scale. More specifically, compared to a previously reported German-speaking sample, HIGHs overall scored higher and LOWs lower. Compared to an estimated distribution of the English-speaking general population, our sample overall scored lower, with the scores of LOWs significantly differing from the normal distribution, with scores in the ∼30th percentile. While HIGHs more often reported musical training compared to LOWs, the distribution of training instruments did not vary across groups. Importantly, even after the highly correlated subscores of the Gold-MSI were decorrelated, particularly the subscales Musical Perception and Musical Training allowed to infer the speech-to-speech synchronization behavior. The differential effects of musical perception and training were observed, with training predicting audio-motor synchronization in both groups, but perception only in the HIGHs. Our findings suggest that speech auditory-motor cortex coupling strength can be inferred from training and perceptual aspects of musical sophistication, suggesting shared mechanisms involved in speech and music perception.

Assessing room acoustic listening expertise.

Musicians and music professionals are often considered to be expert listeners for listening tests on room acoustics. However, these tests often target acoustic parameters other than those typically relevant in music such as pitch, rhythm, amplitude, or timbre. To assess the expertise in perceiving and understanding room acoustical phenomena, a listening test battery was constructed to measure the perceptual sensitivity and cognitive abilities in the identification of rooms with different reverberation times and different spectral envelopes. Performance in these tests was related to data from the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, self-reported previous experience in music recording and acoustics, and academic knowledge on acoustics. The data from 102 participants show that sensory and cognitive abilities are both correlated significantly with musical training, analytic listening skills, recording experience, and academic knowledge on acoustics, whereas general interest in and engagement with music do not show any significant correlations. The regression models, using only significantly correlated criteria of musicality and professional expertise, explain only small to moderate amounts (11%-28%) of the variance in the "room acoustic listening expertise" across the different tasks of the battery. Thus, the results suggest that the traditional criteria for selecting expert listeners in room acoustics are only weak predictors of their actual performances.

Can musical ability be tested online?

We sought to determine whether an objective test of musical ability could be successfully administered online. A sample of 754 participants was tested with an online version of the Musical Ear Test (MET), which had Melody and Rhythm subtests. Both subtests had 52 trials, each of which required participants to determine whether standard and comparison auditory sequences were identical. The testing session also included the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI), a test of general cognitive ability, and self-report questionnaires that measured basic demographics (age, education, gender), mind-wandering, and personality. Approximately 20% of the participants were excluded for incomplete responding or failing to finish the testing session. For the final sample (N = 608), findings were similar to those from in-person testing in many respects: (1) the internal reliability of the MET was maintained, (2) construct validity was confirmed by strong associations with Gold-MSI scores, (3) correlations with other measures (e.g., openness to experience, cognitive ability, mind-wandering) were as predicted, (4) mean levels of performance were similar for individuals with no music training, and (5) musical sophistication was a better predictor of performance on the Melody than on the Rhythm subtest. In sum, online administration of the MET proved to be a reliable and valid way to measure musical ability.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13428-021-01641-2.