What Makes Musical Prodigies?

ABSTRACT: Musical prodigies reach exceptionally high levels of achievement before adolescence. Despite longstanding interest and fascination in musical prodigies, little is known about their psychological profile. Here we assess to what extent practice, intelligence, and personality make musical prodigies a distinct category of musician. Nineteen former or current musical prodigies (aged 12-34) were compared to 35 musicians (aged 14-37) with either an early (mean age 6) or late (mean age 10) start but similar amount of musical training, and 16 non-musicians (aged 14-34). All completed a Wechsler IQ test, the Big Five Inventory, the Autism Spectrum Quotient, the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, the Dispositional Flow Scale, and a detailed history of their lifetime music practice. None of the psy

SUBMITTER: Marion-St-Onge C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7759486 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature