Name:Verena, Buren

School/Affiliation:Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

Co-Authors:Chloe MacGregor, Daniel Müllensiefen, Franziska Degé

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Short Bio:

Verena Buren is a developmental psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt. She completed her PhD in Psychology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, where she also took part in the university’s predoctoral programme and conducted research on active music-making and prosocial behaviour. Her current work investigates how child musicality can be conceptualized and reliably measured, with a focus on broad conceptions of musicality and ecological validity. She develops psychometric tools to assess children’s musicality and studies links to cognitive, motor, and social development.

Abstract:

Studying musical development requires reliable assessments of musical abilities. Numerous tests have been developed for this purpose, yet they differ in the abilities they assess and their theoretical assumptions. Rhythm is a core component of musicality and is frequently included in musical ability assessments. However, despite its prominence, there is currently no systematic overview of the tasks used to assess rhythmic abilities, the rhythmic domains they target and their psychometric properties.
This systematic review examined musicality tests and single musical ability tasks for children aged 0 through 10 years, focusing on rhythmic abilities. We searched PsycInfo, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus for peer-reviewed studies published up to 2022 in English or German. Of 2,291 screened publications, 392 met the inclusion criteria. In 218 of the included studies, rhythmic abilities were assessed, with perception and production tasks in roughly equal proportions. Perception tasks involved rhythm analysis/association (25 %), rhythm discrimination (24 %), beat perception (23 %), tempo perception (21 %), and meter perception (13 %), with some tasks covering more than one domain. Production tasks included recall (36 %), synchronization (20 %), and performance (10 %). Few studies reported psychometric properties: 12 % reported test-theoretical considerations, 23 % external validity, and 33 % internal consistency.
Overall, the findings highlight the central role of rhythm in musical ability assessment, revealing methodological heterogeneity and limited reporting of psychometric criteria. Tasks addressing meter and tempo perception are underrepresented. The review provides a foundation for informed selection and further development of rhythm assessment tools.