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The Music
Apperception Test (MAT) readily engages the interest of children from as young as six years old, adolescents, and adults.
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The instrument provides real-time measures that relate to real-world competence and self- presentation.
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The MAT comes prerecorded with several versions to fit different diagnostic and research needs, a Short Form A and B, a Standard Form, and an Extended Form.
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The test is time efficient. Administration time for the Standard Test, including instructions, is 21 minutes. The test has standardized prerecorded instructions and is the same length for all subjects.
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The MAT introduces new and potentially important indictors of individual differences.
The new indictors are:
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Multiprocessing Tolerance identifies the capacity to simultaneously listen to music and respond.
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Narrative Style describes different “global” approaches to description and engagement with stimuli. It distinguishes Kinetic/Imagistic or Logical narrative styles that relate to how the individual processes information and may be important to treatment planning.
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Affective Attunement is a multilevel measure of the emotional fit of responses to compositions. The MAT permits evaluation of “affective mirroring” and enhances diagnostic sensitivity to affective symptoms and disorders.
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Real-Time narrative adaptation to a changing stimulus permits assessment of attentiveness and sensitivity to test demands.
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The MAT is designed to evaluate change of performance in time as a measure of adaptation to stress and uncertainty.
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The instrument provides measures of evasiveness and defensiveness.
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In conjunction with self-report and visually based tests, the MAT introduces a cross-modal measure of personality and individual differences. It provides convergent validity to traditional measures.
