AUTHOR=Barros Caio G. , Swardfager Walter , Moreno Sylvain , Bortz Graziela , Ilari Beatriz , Jackowski Andrea P. , Ploubidis George , Little Todd D. , Lamont Alexandra , Cogo-Moreira Hugo 

TITLE=Assessing Music Perception in Young Children: Evidence for and Psychometric Features of the M-Factor

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2017

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00018

DOI=10.3389/fnins.2017.00018

ISSN=1662-453X

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, there 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 apprehension 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 São 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 regarding sex, age, or public vs. private school, demonstrating invariance, an important psychometric feature.  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 new opportunity to probe biological and psychological relationships with music perception phenomena and the etiologies of speech and language disorders.