Musical Cognition Within an Analogical Setting: Toward a Cognitive Component of Musical Aptitude in Children

This study is a cross-sectional investigation of the development of children's information-processing and problem-solving strategies as they relate to musical cognition within an analogical setting. 111 children ranging in age from preschool through to 11 years were administered a series of musical analogy tests (MANTs), a series of spatial analogy tests (SANTs), and Gordon's Primary Measures of Music Audiation. The results reinforced the results of an earlier study which revealed that the cognitive strategies used in spatial analogical tests appear very similar to those employed in musical analogical tests. These results should encourage researchers of musical aptitude to maintain the use of discrimination testing and also to broaden the scope of their investigations to include measurements of other aspects of intelligence so as to gain a more complete understanding of musical aptitude.