Development and validation of the first adaptive test of emotion perception in music. Issue 2 (17th February 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: MacGregor, Chloe; Ruth, Nicolas; Müllensiefen, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Cognition and emotion. Volume 37:Issue 2(2023)
• Page Start: 284
• Page End: 302
• Publication Date: 2023-02-17
• Subjects: Emotion perception -- music perception -- emotional abilities -- item response model -- emotion processing; Cognition -- Periodicals; Emotions and cognition -- Periodicals; 155.413
• DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2022.2162003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0269-9931

Abstract

ABSTRACT : The Musical Emotion Discrimination Task (MEDT) is a short, non-adaptive test of the ability to discriminate emotions in music. Test-takers hear two performances of the same melody, both played by the same performer but each trying to communicate a different basic emotion, and are asked to determine which one is "happier", for example. The goal of the current study was to construct a new version of the MEDT using a larger set of shorter, more diverse music clips and an adaptive framework to expand the ability range for which the test can deliver measurements. The first study analysed responses from a large sample of participants ( N = 624) to determine how musical features contributed to item difficulty, which resulted in a quantitative model of musical emotion discrimination ability rooted in Item Response Theory (IRT). This model informed the construction of the adaptive MEDT. A second study contributed preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of the adaptive MEDT, and demonstrated that the new version of the test is suitable for a wider range of abilities. This paper therefore presents the first adaptive musical emotion discrimination test, a new resource for investigating emotion processing which is freely available for research use.