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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...
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... age distribution and the distribution of the expected highest educational qualifications are illustrated in Figure 1. Because educational qualifications were given as optional questions, not all participants responded to these (see Tables 4 and 5 for the sample size). A question regarding socioeconomic status was asked to a subset of participants (n = 148, see Table 5 for details). ...Context 2
... all loadings were significant, we decided to keep all of them in the model. Table 4 presents the summary of the association between demographic information, socioeconomic status, and Gold-MSI-J scores. We used Spearman's ρ, a non-parametric correlation measure, to measure associations between our discrete variables. ...Similar publications
Some scales co-exist in the literature to measure prosocial behavior in adolescents. Gender differences in prosocial behavior have been a controversial topic of research. To strengthen future research in the area, the psychometric properties of the most used instruments must be guaranteed, especially its gender non-bias. Our study provides psychome...
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... Musicality often measured in the context of musical sophistication refers to one's musical skills, knowledge, achievements, and related behaviours . While measures such as the Gold Musical Sophistication Index (Gold MSI) have demonstrated good psychometric properties to examine musicality (Degrave & Dedonder, 2019;Lima et al., 2020;Sadakata et al., 2023;Santangelo et al., 2023;Schaal et al., 2014), to-date no reliable measure of musicality are found in Arabic. An Arabic translation would serve as a tool to effectively assess the link between music training and psychological factors. ...
... However, despite the measure's wide utility and translations to many languages such as Portuguese, French, Dutch, Japanese, and Italian (Degrave & Dedonder, 2019;Lima et al., 2020;Sadakata et al., 2023;Santangelo et al., 2023;Schaal et al., 2014), there is no Arabic version. We aimed to address this gap in the evidence measuring musicality in Arabic populations using the Musical Sophistication Index. ...
... The results showed that convergent and discriminant validity were excellent in most of the subscales. In addition, the correlations between all the subscales were significant, which was similar to the outcomes obtained for the original Gold-MSI , the German version (Schaal et al., 2014), the Portuguese version (Lima et al., 2020), the French version (Degrave & Dedonder, 2019), the Japanese version (Sadakata et al., 2023), and the Italian version (Santangelo et al., 2023). The CFA outcomes revealed similar outcomes to all the prior versions, indicating a good model fit which implies that the items in each subscale are coherent and accurately measure the intended aspects of musical sophistication. ...
... The initial Gold-MSI publication included a validation study based on a sample of 148,037 English responses collected online. Since then, validated versions of the original inventory have been published in German (Schaal et al., 2014), Portuguese (Lima et al., 2020), French (Degrave & Dedonder, 2019), Traditional Chinese (Lin et al., 2021), Simplified Chinese (Li et al., 2024), Japanese (Sadakata et al., 2023), and Italian (Santangelo et al., 2024), many of which were based on online data collection. A Danish version (Gold-MSI-da) has been publicly available on the Gold-MSI webpage since 2014, and it has been used in a number of studies (Bro et al., 2019;Fernández-Rubio et al., 2024;Hansen et al., 2022;Møller et al., 2021). ...
... Hence, the first aim of this online study was to evaluate whether the Gold-MSI-da is a valid tool for assessing the multifaceted nature of musical expertise in the Danish general population. We also assessed changes in subscale scores across the lifespan, motivated by reports of inconsistent associations with age in previous studies (Lima et al., 2020;Sadakata et al., 2023;Santangelo et al., 2024). The second aim was to assess the influence of sample representativeness on the outcomes of various analyses. ...
... It is relevant in cases where researchers wish to compare scores, for example, from different language versions of a questionnaire or between males and females. Particularly the latter is sometimes reported and discussed in music psychology research (Correia et al., 2022;Lima et al., 2020;Sadakata et al., 2023;Santangelo et al., 2024). Crucially, when gender invariance is weak, meaningful comparisons can be drawn between males' and females' scores in terms of their relationship with other variables, for example, the sizes of regression and correlation coefficients. ...
Convenience sampling is often used in music psychology research, leading to an overrepresentation of young participants with high socio-economic status and potentially compromising the generalizability of empirical findings to the broader population. Fortunately, analysis techniques enable matching biased samples to known population characteristics, for example, age, gender, and employment status. This study’s aim is twofold. First, we validate the Danish version of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI-da), a self-report inventory assessing various aspects of musical sophistication on continuous scales in the general population. Then, we demonstrate the use of stratification techniques and quantify the influence of sample composition by comparing results from analyses performed on our biased sample to similar analyses performed using stratified subsampling and poststratification weights to increase representativeness. The bifactor structure of the Gold-MSI-da was consistently replicated, showing similar subscale percentiles in three sample variants. Psychometric benchmarks of internal consistency aligned with benchmarks from other language versions, and although model fits were weaker in the most representative sample, they were still acceptable. Interestingly, the sizes of the effect of self-reported musical training and expertise on musical listening abilities diminished with increasing sample representativeness, indicating potential overestimation when relying on non-representative samples. We conclude that the Gold-MSI-da is a valid tool for assessing musical sophistication in the Danish general population.
... All participants con rmed that they knew the four familiar melodies used in the experiment. The participants' musical ability was evaluated using the Japanese Gold-MSI questionnaire 49 ...
... Prior to the EEG recording, the participants completed the FLANDERS questionnaire 48 and the Japanese Gold-MSI 49 . The EEG recording consisted of four familiar melody blocks and four unfamiliar melody blocks. ...
Electrophysiological studies have investigated predictive processing in music by examining event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the violation of musical expectations. While several studies have reported that the predictability of stimuli can modulate the amplitude of ERPs, it is unclear how specific the representation of the expected note is. The present study addressed this issue by recording the omitted stimulus potentials (OSPs) to avoid contamination of bottom-up sensory processing with top-down predictive processing. Decoding of the omitted content was attempted using a support vector machine, which is a type of machine learning. ERP responses to the omission of four target notes (E, F, A, and C) at the same position in familiar and unfamiliar melodies were recorded from 24 participants. The results showed that the omission N1 and the omission mismatch negativity were larger in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. The decoding accuracy of the four omitted notes was significantly higher in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. These results suggest that the OSPs contain discriminable predictive information, and the higher the predictability, the more the specific representation of the expected note is generated.
... While the effects of culture may accumulate over the lifespan, it is also nonlinear with age, as research on immigrant populations suggests that there may be sensitive periods for acculturation over the lifespan (Bierwiaczonek & Kunst, 2021;Cheung et al., 2011). Individual differences in music reward sensitivity and music training are prevalent in many cultures (Mas-Herrero et al., 2013;Müllensiefen et al., 2014;Sadakata et al., 2022;Saliba et al., 2016) and also vary with age (Belfi et al., 2022;Müllensiefen et al., 2014). This is subserved by developmental plasticity in the reward system especially in adolescence and young adulthood (Davidow et al., 2016;Fasano et al., 2023). ...
Human imagination is generative and creative yet deeply rooted in culture and familiarity. Recent studies have quantified the effects of culture on stories that are imagined during music listening, but the music used in previous work was always drawn from a tradition familiar to participants from at least one of the cultures. Here we report the first study of imagined stories to music written in a musical system that is novel to participants from each culture, thus allowing for a direct comparison of narratives prompted by the same set of excerpts that is comparably unfamiliar to both groups. Music composed in the Bohlen–Pierce scale was presented to participants from two geographically defined cultures: Boston, United States and Beijing, China. We also examined how individual differences, such as in musicality and sensitivity to musical reward, might affect narrative engagement and semantic content of the imagined stories as measured by tools from natural language processing. Results showed that semantic spaces of music-evoked imaginings differed between Boston and Beijing cohorts. While both cultures were similarly engaged by the story response task, differences emerged in the semantic content of the imagined stories. Boston participants who reported being more absorbed by music wrote more unconventional stories, whereas Beijing participants who reported more emotional responses to music wrote more conventional stories. These results reveal the roles of culture and individual differences in modes of narrative engagement and imagination during music listening.
Electrophysiological studies have investigated predictive processing in music by examining event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the violation of musical expectations. While several studies have reported that the predictability of stimuli can modulate the amplitude of ERPs, it is unclear how specific the representation of the expected note is. The present study addressed this issue by recording the omitted stimulus potentials (OSPs) to avoid contamination of bottom-up sensory processing with top-down predictive processing. Decoding of the omitted content was attempted using a support vector machine, which is a type of machine learning. ERP responses to the omission of four target notes (E, F, A, and C) at the same position in familiar and unfamiliar melodies were recorded from 25 participants. The results showed that the omission N1 were larger in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. The decoding accuracy of the four omitted notes was significantly higher in the familiar melody condition than in the unfamiliar melody condition. These results suggest that the OSPs contain discriminable predictive information, and the higher the predictability, the more the specific representation of the expected note is generated.
A frequency range exceeding approximately 30 Hz, denoted as the gamma frequency range, is associated with various cognitive functions, consciousness, sensory integration, short-term memory, working memory, encoding and maintenance of episodic memory, and retrieval processes. In this study, we proposed a new form of gamma stimulation, called gamma music, combining 40 Hz auditory stimuli and music. This gamma music consists of drums, bass, and keyboard sounds, each containing a 40 Hz frequency oscillation. Since 40 Hz stimuli are known to induce an auditory steady-state response (ASSR), we used the 40 Hz power and phase locking index (PLI) as indices of neural activity during sound stimulation. We also recorded subjective ratings of each sound through a questionnaire using a visual analog scale. The gamma music, gamma drums, gamma bass, and gamma keyboard sounds showed significantly higher values in 40 Hz power and PLI compared to the control music without a 40 Hz oscillation. Particularly, the gamma keyboard sound showed a potential to induce strong ASSR, showing high values in these indices. In the subjective ratings, the gamma music, especially the gamma keyboard sound, received more relaxed, comfortable, preferred, pleasant, and natural impressions compared to the control music with conventional gamma stimulation. These results indicate that our proposed gamma music has potential as a new method for inducing ASSR. Particularly, the gamma keyboard sound proved to be an effective acoustic source for inducing a strong ASSR while preserving the comfortable and pleasant sensation of listening to music. Our developed gamma music, characterized by its pleasantness to the human ear, offers a significant advantage for the long-term use of gamma stimulation. The utilization of this music could potentially reduce the physical and psychological burden on participants compared to conventional 40 Hz stimuli. This music is not only expected to contribute to fundamental neuroscience research utilizing ASSR but also to facilitate the implementation of gamma music-based interventions aimed at enhancing human cognitive functions in everyday life.
A frequency range exceeding approximately 30 Hz, denoted as the gamma frequency range, is associated with various cognitive functions, consciousness, sensory integration, short-term memory, working memory, encoding and maintenance of episodic memory, and retrieval processes. In this study, we proposed a new form of gamma stimulation, called gamma music, combining 40 Hz auditory stimuli and music. This gamma music consists of drums, bass, and keyboard sounds, each containing a 40 Hz frequency oscillation. Since 40 Hz stimuli are known to induce an auditory steady-state response (ASSR), we used the 40 Hz power and phase locking index (PLI) as indices of neural activity during sound stimulation. We also recorded subjective ratings of each sound through a questionnaire using a visual analog scale. The gamma music, gamma drums, gamma bass, and gamma keyboard sounds showed significantly higher values in 40 Hz power and PLI compared to the control music without a 40 Hz oscillation. Particularly, the gamma keyboard sound showed a potential to induce strong ASSR, showing high values in these indices. In the subjective ratings, the gamma music, especially the gamma keyboard sound, received more relaxed, comfortable, preferred, pleasant, and natural impressions compared to the control music with conventional gamma stimulation. These results indicate that our proposed gamma music has potential as a new method for inducing ASSR. Particularly, the gamma keyboard sound proved to be an effective acoustic source for inducing a strong ASSR while preserving the comfortable and pleasant sensation of listening to music.
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 ( r tt = [.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.
Although music education researchers often utilize music major status as a single-item proxy variable for musician status—and with this designation presume musical competencies or abilities of research participants—there is a lack of research demonstrating links between status as a music major and those assumed competencies. In this study, we compared undergraduate music majors and non-music majors ( N = 237) at the group and individual levels using Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI), a well-established measure of multiple ways in which people report engaging with music. Comparing group means, we found that music majors scored higher than non-music majors on each Gold-MSI subscale. Moderate distribution overlap suggested that these results should be considered cautiously. A logistic regression analysis further suggested the complexity of using music major status as a single-item measure, given that music major status was only strongly predicted by the musical training subscale. Measures such as Gold-MSI may provide a viable and psychometrically sound way of determining musical sophistication that will allow more granular and refined analyses of studies relating to musical competencies.
