An efficient and adaptive test of auditory mental imagery

Abstract

The ability to silently hear music in the mind has been argued to be fundamental to musicality. Objective measurements of this subjective imagery experience are needed if this link between imagery ability and musicality is to be investigated. However, previous tests of musical imagery either rely on self-report, rely on melodic memory, or do not cater in range of abilities. The Pitch Imagery Arrow Task (PIAT) was designed to address these shortcomings; however, it is impractically long. In this paper, we shorten the PIAT using adaptive testing and automatic item generation. We interrogate the cognitive processes underlying the PIAT through item response modelling. The result is an efficient online test of auditory mental imagery ability (adaptive Pitch Imagery Arrow Task: aPIAT) that takes 8 min to complete, is adaptive to participant's individual ability, and so can be used to test participants with a range of musical backgrounds. Performance on the aPIAT showed positive moderate-to-strong correlations with measures of non-musical and musical working memory, self-reported musical training, and general musical sophistication. Ability on the task was best predicted by the ability to maintain and manipulate tones in mental imagery, as well as to resist perceptual biases that can lead to incorrect responses. As such, the aPIAT is the ideal tool in which to investigate the relationship between pitch imagery ability and musicality.

Measuring Audiation or Tonal Memory? Evaluation of the Discriminant Validity of Edwin E. Gordon's “Advanced Measures of Music Audiation”

“…Measuring audiation thus calls for new diagnostic instruments to be developed that focus on the multi-faceted structure of audiation with more consideration of domain-specific tasks and the cognitive processes that underlie them. In recent years, several tools have been developed for measuring skills related to the types and stages of the phenomenon of audiation, such as notation-evoked sound imagery (e.g., or auditory mental imagery (e.g., Gelding et al, 2020). It is time to develop a new series of tests for measuring audiation that adhere to the high standards of today's psychometric testing, including Rasch model conformity, automatic item generation (Gierl & Haladyna, 2013), and adaptive testing (Harrison et al, 2017).…”

“…Although the short scale was Rasch-optimized, we found a somewhat low internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0.44, see Table S8 in the Supplementary Material section). This can be attributed not only to the items’ quality but also to their small number, the sample size and homogeneity, and the items’ underlying eigenvalue (Bujang et al, 2018; Cortina, 1993; Green et al, 1977; Yurdugül, 2008). As indicated by the scale mean false(M=0.88,0.25em0.25emSD=0.18false), all five items tended to be insufficiently difficult for our sample false(0.807≤M≤0.964false), along with item-total correlations that were in an almost acceptable range false(0.211≤r≤0.276false).…”

papel de las cualidades del sonido en las imágenes mentales sonoras

“…Tradicionalmente, ciertas perspectivas pedagógico-musicales históricas manifestaban que el canto a primera vista ayudaba a generar imágenes mentales de la música impresa (Karpinski, 2000), varios métodos pedagógico-musicales afirman que son capaces de desarrollar la audición interna (Gordon, 1993;Jacques-Dalcroze, 1921) y músicos famosos han defendido la importancia de este tipo de imágenes mentales, como Karl Leimer, Walter Gieseking, Pau Casals, Glenn Gould o Anton Rubinstein (Clark et al, 2012). Sin embargo no había una fundamentación basada en la investigación científica, sino en las experiencias empiristas, con pruebas de valoración subjetivas o con un entrenamiento específico, para provocar que suceda en pruebas experimentales (Goldsworthy en Gelding et al, 2020).…”

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

“…Hallam, 2010, 2016) makes it difficult to offer a simple definition. Gembris (1997) describes three different phases in the history of research on musical ability. The initial investigation of musical ability started in the 1800s, mainly focusing on phenomenological aspects of musical listening and performance (e.g., Michaelis et al as cited in Gembris, 1997).…”

“…Gembris (1997) describes three different phases in the history of research on musical ability. The initial investigation of musical ability started in the 1800s, mainly focusing on phenomenological aspects of musical listening and performance (e.g., Michaelis et al as cited in Gembris, 1997). In a second phase during the 20th century, research focused on the development of psychometric measures of musical abilities in the form of test batteries for musical aptitude or talent (e.g., Galton, 1883; Gordon, 1967; Seashore et al, 1960; Wing, 1962).…”