The Musicality of Non-Musicians:

Measuring Musical Expertise in

Britain

Daniel Müllensiefen

Goldsmiths, University of London

Why do we need to assess

musical sophistication?

� Need for a reliable tool to quickly assess musical

expertise in music cognition research

� We cannot rely solely on musical training as a proxy for

musical abilities

• “Expert listeners” with limited formal training

� No standardised questionnaire instrument to assess

skilled musical behaviours

� Need to recognize multiple facets of musical expertise:

• Music writers, commentators, critics

• Music educators

• Music producers, recording engineers

• DJs

Earlier tests of musical

expertise

� Self-report questionnaires:Cuddy, Balkwill, Peretz, & Holden (2005), Ollen (2006), Werner, Swope, &

Heide (2006), Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham (2007), MacDonald & Stewart (2008), Chin & Rickard (2012)

� Musical ability tests: Seashore, Lewis, & Saetveit (1960), Wing (1962), Bentley (1966), Gordon

(1989), Wallentin et al. (2010), Law & Zentner (2012)

� Conceptual suggestions: Hallam & Prince (2003), Bigand (2006), Honing (2011), Levitin (2012)

Missing: (Focus on musical expertise) x (Covering wide range of musical

skills) x (Combining self-report and objective testing)

What is the Goldsmiths Musical

Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI)?

� A new definition of musical sophistication

� A new self-report inventory

� A new battery of listening tests

� A lot of data

� Joining self-report questionnaire and ability tests into one research tool and make it freely available

A lot of data...� Pilot study self-report inventory with BBC LabUK (n = 488)

� BBC LabUK online implementation How Musical Are You?(n ~ 148,000)

� Lab study testing reliability and correlation with other tests (n = 53)

� 2 studies investigating the validity of self-report inventory and the correlation with personality traits (n = 224, n = 44)

� 5 extended lab studies for optimisation of listening tests (together: n ~ 600)

� Online implementation for Channel 4’s Hidden Talent Show(n = 3,793)

� Testing tapping abilities of visitors at London Science Museum (n ~ 300)

Analogues to musical expertise

� Review of expertise research literature in other domains

• Art expertise (Augustin & Leder, 2006; Leder & al., 2004)

• Wine (Hughson & Boakes, 2002, Hughson & Boakes 2009)

• Physics (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981)

� Greater expertise in one domain is associated with more structured cognitive representations that

exhibit a clearer hierarchical organization (Ericsson &

Smith, 1991; Glaser, 1994; Honeck et al., 1987)

A new definition of musical

sophistication� Musical Sophistication:

• Psychometric construct comprising musical skills, expertise, achievements and related behaviours across a range of facets measured on different subscales.

� Assumptions: • Facets of musical sophistication can develop through active

engagement with music in its many different forms.• Individuals vary in their level of sophistication on the different

facets.• High levels of musical sophistication are generally

characterised by• higher frequencies for exerting the musical skills or behaviours

• greater ease, accuracy or effect of the musical behaviour when executed

• a greater and more varied repertoire of behaviour patterns associated with it

Comparing with earlier models

� Definition of musical sophistication builds on similar concepts introduced earlier:• Hallam & Prince (2003) and Ollen (2006) also stressed the multi-

dimensional nature of musical sophistication including aural skills, receptive responses, and the different abilities to make music

� What is new in our definition:• Emphasizes other skilled musical behaviours besides instrumental

practice

• Is not biased towards art music

• Assess real-world and high-level musical skills

• Includes a self-assessment of musical skills

• Models musical sophistication as a continuous parameter

• Is explicitly linked to cognitive theories of expertise in otherdomains

The BBC’s How Musical Are You?

test

The BBC’s How Musical Are You?

test

� How Musical Are You? Test implemented by BBC Lab UK and promoted on the BBC network in 2011

� 148,037 participants � 70 items self-report inventory on musical background,

behaviour, self-assessed skills

� Four ‘objective’ perceptual and production tests� Minimal socio-demographic data

� Duration: ~25 minutes� Final feedback on “relationship with music” as well as

objective scores

The dimensions of musical

sophistication

� Data: 147,633 participants responding to 70 question items

� Analysis goals: 1. Identify latent factor structure and ‘cluster’ items

into subscales

2. Refine and shorten subscales3. Assess internal reliability on fresh dataset

� Techniques: Factor analysis, item response models, structural equation modelling

Factor analysis on the How

Musical Are You? data

� Best model: one general factor and 5 dimensions

• Active engagement

• Perceptual abilities

• Musical training

• Singing abilities

• Emotions

� Item response theory used to shorten the questionnaire

• 5 scales comprising 6 to 9 items; 38 items in total

• Cronbach’s alpha between .789 and .900

� Strong general factor of

musical sophistication

• Evidence: High eigenvalue

of 1st factor, high inter-factor

correlations, high ωhierarchical

� 5 distinct dimensions of

musical sophistication They can be measured by

6-9 items each

• Evidence: Good overall

model fit (RMSEA=.06,

SPMR=.06, CFI=.88,

TLI=.87)

• Evidence: High internal reliabilities of subscales

(Cronbach’s α > .79)

Test-retest reliability and

comparison with other scales

Test-Retest Reliability (n=53, mean time lag=

64 days)

Convergent Validity:

Correlations with MEQ (n=141)

Convergent Validity:

Correlations with AMMA (n=44)

Active Engagement .90** .20* .41**

Perceptual Abilities .89** .32** .51**

Musical Training .97** .40** .43**

Singing Abilities .94** .42** .43**

Emotions .86** .19* .32*

General Musical Sophistication

.97** .45** .50**

Musical sophistication and

personality traits (TIPI)

n=141Active

EngagementPerceptual

AbilitiesMusicalTraining

SingingAbilities

EmotionsGeneral

Sophistication

Extraversion .20** .29** .27** .34** .18* .33**

Agreeableness .10 .19** .10 .19* .14* .18*

Conscientious-ness

-.13 -.08 -.12 -.12 -.16* -.16*

Emotional Stability

.08 .18* .13 .13 .04 .16*

Openness .39** .36** .30** .33** .41** .43**

Extraversion(Eysenck)

.33** .31** .19* .44** .28** .35**

Musical sophistication and

personality traits

� High scores on Openness to Experience associated with:

• Cognitive ability (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2004) • Aesthetic interest (McManus & Furnham, 2006; Furnham &

Chamorro-Premuzic, 2004)

• Powerful emotional reactions when listening to music (Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2011)

Interim summary

� The Gold-MSI self-report inventory is a valid and reliable measure of different facets of musical sophistication

� It comprises 5 factors and 1 general factor

� It is based on self-assessed skills and self-reported behaviours

⇒ How does self-reported sophistication compare to performance in listening tests?

Listening tests

� 13-item Melodic Memory test:• AB comparison

• novel folk tunes

• akin to Dowling & Bartlett (1982) and Cuddy & Lyons (1981)

Listening tests

�17-item Beat Perception test:• correct/incorrect judgement

• unknown instrumental tunes from rock, jazz, popular classical

• variant of Iversen & Patel’s (2008) Beat Alignment Test

Listening tests

� 16-item Sound Similarity test:• 800ms audio excerpts from

typical rock, pop, hiphop, jazz songs

• Sorting paradigm similar to Gingras et al. (2011)

• Inspired by Gjerdingen & Perrott (2008) and Krumhansl (2010)

Listening tests

� 129,560 participants provided complete data for all three tests plus the self-report inventory

Modelling self-reported and test

performance

� Musical Training benefits

melodic memory (β=.22 ) and beat perception performance

(β=.17)

� Perceptual Abilities benefit

melodic memory (β=.15) and beat perception (β=.17)

� Accurate sound similarity judgements are related to

Active Engagement (β=.11) but not to Musical Training (β=.03)

Modelling self-report and test

performance

� The general musical sophistication factor indexes all three test scores

� The three listening tests measure different abilities

=> low inter-test correlations (r < .15)

Musical sophistication and

socio-economic variables

How does self-reported musical sophistication relate to socio-economic variables?

� Data: 90,474 Brits from How Musical Are You? sample

� Analyses:• Random Forest regression • Post-hoc analysis based on permutation tests• Regression tree models (Strobl et al., 2009)

SES affecting self-reported

General Musical Sophistication

Higher musical sophistication: Younger people, ‘creative’ professions (media, music) and flexible occupational status (at school, uni, self-employed)

But: R2 = .045

The role of wealth

How does wealth of local area affect test scores and self-reported Musical Sophistication?

� Data: • Averages (self-report, test scores) by local authority of ~90,000

Brits from How Musical Are You? Sample

• Median income by local authority from 2011 Annual Survey of Earnings (National Office of Statistics and Ordnance Survey)

Correlations with income

Musical Training ~ Annual Income (r = .31)

Active Engagement ~ Annual Income (r = .01)

Correlations with income

General Sophistication ~ Annual Income (r = .14)

Combined test score ~ Annual Income (r = .40)

‘Musical landscapes’

Summary� Gold-MSI is a valid and reliable self-report inventory and test

battery for musical skills and expertise.

� Identification of psychological and social conditions related tomusical sophistication:• Intensive engagement with music is highest in early, flexible periods

of life

• Musical behaviour and skills seem to change with life circumstances (occupation, age)

• Substantial correlation of regional income with musical training and objectively assessed listening skills

• But: Main proportion of individual differences not explained by SES factors

� All components of the Gold-MSI:• Are freely available for research purposes

• Are fully documented

• Have data norms derived from an adult population

Next Steps

Causes, Consequences and Correlations:

� Genetics:

Heritability of hearing ability and musical listening skills: Twin study with DTR, St Thomas‘ Hospital

� Neuroscience:

Neuroanatomical correlates of individual differences in basic auditory and high-level musical skills: MRI study with ICN

� Psychological and social factors:

Secondary data analysis of joined datasets from Personality Test (Cambridge) and Great British Class Survey (LSE/Uni Manchester)

How to get the Gold-MSI

� Materials for download (documentation and audio stimuli):

http://www.gold.ac.uk/music-mind-brain/gold-msi/

� Online version of the tests:

http://www.gold.ac.uk/music-mind-brain/gold-

msi/online-tests/

� BBC version: “How musical are you”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/musicality/

Thank you!

Very helpful people:

� Amit Avron

� Thenille Braun

� Monika Ruscynski

� Naoko Skiada

� Katharina Bauer

The Gold-MSI Core Team:

� Daniel Müllensiefen

� Jason Musil

� Lauren Stewart