A Music Projective Technique

Twenty college students and twenty hospitalized patients diagnosed as schizophrenic, equated for age, sex, and intelligence, were told to tell a story to sixteen successive pre-recorded excerpts of music. Tests of reliability indicated that the Ss' reaction times and rates of verbalization were stable from music excerpt to excerpt and from test to retest. Interrater reliabilities of judgments concerning verbal content of responses were acceptable. Analyses of variance indicated the hospitalized group had longer reaction times before verbalization to the music stimulus, spoke less during the music, but more during the interim period between music excerpts. The hospitalized group used significantly less human content and visual imagery, but significantly more animal content than the college group. In general, reaction time was quicker to fast tempo music than slow tempo music, and fast tempo music evoked happier more outgoing themes than slow tempo music. Stories told by the hospitalized group were often highly inappropriate vis-a-vis music demands. The instrument clearly differentiated groups.