Rhythm aptitude was measured with the rhythm section of the computer-based version of the Primary Measures of Music Audiation (Gordon, 1979 (link)). In each trial, the children were presented with two monotonic melodic rhythmic excerpts that were either identical or slightly varied in their temporal pattern, and then they were asked to decide whether the two rhythms were the same or different. The task consisted of two practice trials with one same and one different trial and 40 test trials with 20 same and 20 different trials. Children were given feedback about the correctness of their answers only in the practice phase and not in the testing phase. Same and different trials appeared in the same order for each child. The task was implemented in a game format in which a dog named Molly gets one step closer to her home with every answer. Depending on their computer abilities, children responded verbally or by selecting the option with a computer mouse. We used d′, the difference between z-scored hit and false alarm rate as a measure of rhythm discrimination.
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