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Nov 1988

Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S2-S224

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back to top Session SS. Psychological Acoustics IV: Pitch, Timbre, the Coding of Complex Sounds, and Masking (Poster Session)
Contributed Papers
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Detection of increments and decrements in modulation depth of SAM noise (A)

D. Wesley Grantham and Sid P. Bacon

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S140-S140 (1988); (1 page) | Cited 2 times

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Difference limens (DLs) for the modulation depth of a sinusoidally amplitude‐modulated (SAM) wideband noise were measured using a two‐interval forced‐choice adaptive procedure. For increment detection the reference modulation depth (mr) was 0.0, 0.25, 0.50, or 0.75. For decrement detection, mr was 0.45, 0.60, 0.75, or 0.90. Modulation frequency was 2, 4, 64, or 512 Hz. The DL is defined as 10 log∣mthr2 − mr2∣, where mthr is the modulation depth just discriminable from mr. For mr = 0.0, the DLs (or “absolute” modulation thresholds) varied from −25 to −10 dB as modulation frequency varied from 2–512 Hz. As mr increased, the increment DL increased monotonically for each frequency from its absolute detection level to about −6 dB at mr = 0.75. These data are in good agreement with those of Wakefleld and Viemeister [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 72, S90 (1982)]. The decrement DLs overlay and extended the increment DL functions, although the DLs for the highest mr (0.90) decreased slightly (−10 dB). In a separate manipulation, no effect on the modulation onset phase on modulation depth discrimination was found. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Interference of modulation rate discrimination of pure tones (A)

William A. Yost, Stanley Sheft, and Jane Opie

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S140-S140 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Modulation rate discrimination (Δfm) thresholds were obtained for sinusoidally amplitude modulated (SAM) pure tones. The carrier frequencies were 1000 and 4000 Hz and the modulation rates were 5, 10, 20, and 50 Hz. The Δfm thresholds of one carrier (the probe) were also obtained when the other carrier (the masker) was presented simultaneously. The masker was either SAM or was unmodulated. In all conditions the depth of SAM was 100%. This experiment was designed to determine how much the modulated masker interferes with the discrimination of modulation rate and how this interference changes as a function of the difference in modulation rate between the masker and probe. It has been shown previously [Yost and Sheft, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 83, S35 (1988)] that a modulated masker interfered significantly with a listener's ability to detect SAM of the probe when the masker and probe were modulated at the same rate. This modulated detection interference (MDI) was reduced when the masker was modulated at a different rate than the probe. These earlier results suggested that there might be auditory channels “tuned” to different rates of amplitude modulation. The present experiment was designed to further test the concept of AM tuned channels. [This research was supported by the NINCDS.]
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Dynamic perception of tones simultaneously modulated in both frequency and amplitude (A)

Takashi Tsumura

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S140-S140 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Auditory processing in the dynamic perception of tones with simultaneous frequency modulation (FM) and amplitude modulation (AM) was investigated. Thresholds for the detection of target modulation (FM or AM) were measured with the respective nontarget modulation (AM or FM) kept well above threshold. The carrier frequencies of tones below 1 kHz were used. For FM and AM having the same sinusoidal modulation frequencies below 20 Hz, the thresholds of the target modulation changed as a function of the phase difference between the target and nontarget modulations. When the frequencies of the FM and AM were different from each other, the thresholds of the target modulation were nearly the same as those obtained for a tone with the target modulation alone. When the frequency and amplitude continuously increased or decreased in a short tonal duration, there was little difference in the threshold of the target modulation between the cases for increase and decrease in nontarget modulation. These results suggest the existence of channels selectively tuned to the periodicity of FM and AM in the auditory pathways. [Work supported by a Grant in Aid for Scientific Research (No. 62510059) from the Ministry of Education.]
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Effects of manipulating the spectral shape of reproducible noise samples on detection judgments (A)

R. H. Gilkey, B. D. Simpson, and A. M. Hammoud

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S140-S141 (1988); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The single‐interval/yes‐no detection judgments of subjects to a subset of ten noise‐alone and ten signal‐plus‐noise samples from the 300 waveforms examined by Gilkey and Meyer [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 82, S92 (1987)] were investigated further by manipulating the spectral shape of the samples. The spectral shape was “modulated” by either incrementing or decrementing the level in a 47‐Hz band centered around one of seven center frequencies ranging from an octave below to an octave above the signal frequency. The waveform on each trial within a block was randomly sampled without replacement from a large set of modulated and unmodulated waveforms. Thus the experience of the subject was assumed to be comparable to that with truly random noise. Detection judgments are affected by changes in the shape of the spectrum that are well outside the critical band centered at the signal frequency. The results are discussed in relation to models of auditory masking. [Work supported by NSF and AFOSR.]
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Critical band distortion analysis (A)

Edward Cudahy, Harry Levitt, and H. Cynthia Link

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S141 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Current measurement techniques typically focus on distortion produced by clipping or intermodulation of pure tones. There is little information on the relation between these measurements and the perception of distortion. The present study had two purposes. First, to develop a general method for measuring distortion. Second, to determine the association between this physical measurement and the perception of distortion for normal hearing listeners. Results suggest that a critical band analysis of distortion can be useful for predicting thresholds for distortion, at least for simple stimuli. [Research supported by NIDRR.]
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A minimum discriminable bandwidth test for critical bandwidth estimation (A)

Robert D. Celmer and Gordon R. Bienvenue

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S141 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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A test procedure has been developed through the use of a modified method of limits technique for the direct measurement of critical bandwidth. A tonal complex with an initially subcritical bandwidth is presented to a listener. The test signal then discretely widens in bandwidth with time; each bandwidth has a duration of approximately 800 ms. Subjects indicate at which bandwidth they perceive a change in the sound. The minimum bandwidth at which a listener can discriminate a difference in the tonal complex is taken to be that subject's critical bandwidth (cf. Scharf, 1970). The tonal complexes were generated using a digital signal processing algorithm, with the value of the initial bandwidth randomized to reduce learning effects. Results of the test performed on normal and sensorineural hearing impaired listeners are presented. Implications for evaluating sensorineural hearing impairment are discussed.
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Frequency effects for multicomponent maskers with high spectral uncertainty (A)

Donna L. Nef and Brian P. Callaghan

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S141 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Simultaneous maskers composed of a few sinusoidal components can produce considerable masking if the component frequencies are unpredictable. This experiment examined how components in particular frequency regions influenced performance. Thresholds were measured for a 1000‐Hz signal presented simultaneously with a masker composed of 2, 4, 6, 10, 50, or 100 components. Components were drawn from a 300–3000‐Hz range, excluding the critical band around 1000 Hz. When sufficient masking was produced by uncertainty, limiting components to the high‐or low‐frequency side of the signal, or widening the notch around the signal, had little effect. Decreasing uncertainty reduced thresholds for maskers limited to high‐frequency components, but not for those limited to low frequencies. Paradoxically, forcing components into narrower bandwidths around the signal could reduce masking by about 5 dB. Large individual differences on this task were not well predicted by measures of auditory filter shape with notched‐noise maskers. [Work supported by AFOSR.]
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Detection of a silent gap in single components of a multitonal complex (A)

David M. Green and T. O. Forrest

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S141 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Complex multitonal waveforms were generated using 21 equal‐amplitude sinusoids. The tones range in frequency from 200–5000 Hz, and the frequency ratio of the successive components was constant (equal‐logarithmic intervals). The listener's task was to detect the silent gap in a single component of the complex. The gap occurred either in the temporal center of a 500–ms burst or at a randomly chosen temporal location. For both conditions, gap threshold decreases with component frequency from about 20–50 ms at the lower frequencies to about 2–5 ms at the highest frequency. It is somewhat easier to hear a gap if it is present in more than a single component. Synchronized gaps are slightly easier to hear than asynchronous gaps, even if the asynchronous gaps occur at predictable times. [Research supported by AFOSR and NSF.]
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Discrimination of recycled word‐length sequences (A)

James A. Bashford, Jr. and Richard M. Warrren

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S141 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Earlier studies in this laboratory have dealt with the ability to distinguish between permuted orders using recycling or locked sequences of three of four items. More complex “Watson” sequences, presented as single bursts, typically of ten items, have been used to examine discrimination involving “word‐length” patterns. The present study combines elements of both techniques, investigating the ability to discriminate minimal changes of order within recycled word‐length sequences of 40 ms items: sinusoids (experiment 1); vowels (experiment 2); and frozen noise segments (experiment 3). Listeners made ABX judgments for pairs of ten‐item sequences differing only in the ordering of two contiguous items. Pattern pools of 48 sequence pairs were employed in each experiment. This hybrid technique of recycling word‐length sequences permits ready discrimination of permuted order: For example, naive listeners presented with tone sequences performed at levels well above chance at the outset of training and approached 96% accuracy in less than 100 trials. Special aspects of results obtained with sequences of vowels and frozen noise will be discussed. [Work supported by AFOSR.]
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Detection of changes in frequency‐ and time‐transposed auditory patterns (A)

Gary R. Kidd and Charles S. Watson

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S141-S142 (1988); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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It is well known that listeners can recognize familiar melodies that have been transposed in pitch or played in a different tempo [e.g., J. C. Bartlett and W. J. Dowling, J. Exp. Psychol.: Hum. Percept. Perform. 6, 501–515 (1980); R. Francès, La perception de la musique (J. Vrin, Paris, 1958)]. However, the effect of transposition on the recognition of unfamiliar auditory patterns that do not have the pitch‐material or stuctural constraints of musical patterns has not been investigated. Listeners' abilities to detect frequency changes in transpositions of randomly generated five‐tone patterns were examined using a same‐different adaptive‐tracking procedure. On each trial a standard pattern was followed by a comparison pattern that was transposed in frequency, time, or both dimensions. The magnitude of a frequency difference introduced in a single tonal component was adjusted from trial to trial, based on the listener's performance. Frequency and time transpositions consisted of increases in frequency and duration, respectively, ranging from 12%–100%. Listeners were told to ignore the changes in absolute frequency and time and make their judgments on the basis of the pattern of intervals. Increases in both frequency and temporal transposition lead to decrements in performance. However, on the average, frequency transposition yields more severely degraded performance than temporal transposition in the range of conditions studied. [Work supported by AFOSR and NIH.]
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Effect of attention on hearing ability (A)

Shin'ichi Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Usagawa, and Masanao Ebata

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S142 (1988); (1 page) | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The temporal characteristics of attention in auditory signal processing are studied experimentally. The effect of information about the timing of a tone's occurrence on its threshold and DL (difference limen) was examined. When uninformed about the timing of tone occurrence, subjects must keep their attention throughout the experimental period. This concentration makes the subject so tired that he often fails to detect the tone. In the present study, the test tone was presented at fixed and random timings. The threshold was measured using a 1‐kHz pure tone at seven levels, and the DL was measured using an overmodulated AM tone by the method of constant stimuli. The results show that the information on the timing of the tones lowers thresholds and reduces DLs. This phenomenon can be regarded as a result of an improvement in the S/N ratio because of the correlation between the input auditory signal and the knowledge of its timing.
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Attentional filters and frequency uncertainty in the detection of one or more tones (A)

Robert S. Schlauch and Ervin R. Hafter

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S142 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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A probe‐signal method [G. Z. Greenberg and W. D. Larkin, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 44, 1513–1523 (1968)] is used to study the listening bands for tonal signals in noise. In a two‐interval, forced choice paradigm, cues mark the frequency of a randomly chosen target signal on about 70% of the trials while probe signals on the remaining trials have frequencies that differ from the cues by ratios ranging from 0.7–1.4. Based on pretesting, levels are set to produce 90% correct detections when the signal's frequency matches the cue; this is true whether or not the target is roved from trial to trial. Listening bands are studied by plotting all of the data relative to the target frequencies. In a test of a theory that postulates that bandwidth may vary in response to uncertainty [Johnson and Hafter, Percept. Psychophys. 28, 143–149 (1980)], two or more equally likely targets are cued on every trial, allowing for simultaneous measurement of multiple listening bands.
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Development of a model for multidimensional identification experiments (A)

Louis D. Braida

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S142 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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When several aspects of a stimulus are identified simultaneously, the pattern of errors made by an observer is generally not well described by a unidimensional Thurstonian decision mode. Although such data are often interpreted with the aid of multidimensional scaling techniques, this approach describes only very crude aspects of confusion matrices. A multidimensional generalization of the Thurstonian decision model has been developed that permits relatively precise predictions of error patterns to be made from parameters that describe sensitivity and bias. This model has been applied to identification experiments using vibrotactile stimuli varying over large ranges of intensity, frequency, and contactor area [Rabinowitz et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 1243–1252 (1987)]. Analysis reveals, for example, that sensitivity for a given stimulus dimension is generally reduced when both that dimension and another dimension are identified. This reduction is partially responsible for the failure of multidimensional stimuli to transmit as much information as performance for the separate dimensions would suggest. Also, for vibrotactile stimuli, the perceptual coordinates corresponding to frequency and contractor area are relatively orthogonal while that corresponding to intensity is skewed relative to these. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Stream segregation—source grouping versus peripheral channeling (A)

William Morris Hartmann and Douglas Johnson

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S142 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The prevailing view is that auditory stream segregation should be understood as fundamentally teleological. Two tones are segregated into the same stream if, according to Gestalt grouping rules, they probably derive from the same acoustical source. A problem with this point of view is that there are many different stimulus features that might serve equally well to identify and group sources, but not all of these features are equally effective in promoting stream segregation. Using an interleaved melody identification paradigm, the ability of listeners to segregate streams based upon ten different kinds of stimulus features was measured. The results show that tones that excite different peripheral channels of the auditory system, based upon differences in octave range, ear presentation, or spectral envelope, can be separately streamed with very high efficiency. Tones that excite primarily the same peripheral channels, but that may be identified as different sources based upon level, duration, amplitude envelope, or interaural phase difference, can be separately streamed, but with markedly less efficiency. Tone sequences that employ irregular rhythm or added noise cue bands do not promote stream segregation. [Work supported by the NIH.]
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Pitch of complex tones (A)

Masanao Ebata, Youichi Matsuyama, Shin'ichi Suzuki, and Tsuyoshi Usagawa

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S142 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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There has been much research on low pitch, but the mechanism of the perception of low pitch has not yet been made clear. In this paper, the characteristics of the pitch of complex tones were compared with those of pure tones. The effect of duration on pitch discrimination for complex tones was almost the same as that for pure tone, but the slope of the DL curve as a function of the duration was a little slower for the complex tone than for the pure tone in the region of shorter duration. The pitch shift due to the auditory fatigue observed for the pure tones was also observed for the complex tones. The effect of a preceding tone on the pitch of a complex tone was also observed. The pitch of the complex tone was influenced by a preceding tone with the same frequency as one of the components of the complex tone. Based on these observations, the process of pitch extraction for complex tones was discussed.
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Informational processing of complex sound (A)

Robert A. Lutfi

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S142-S143 (1988); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Normal‐hearing listeners discriminated among complex, nonspeech sounds in which the difference to be discriminated was randomly varied from trial to trial. All other physical parameters of the sounds were fixed within a block of trials. On each trial, the listener heard two sounds (e.g., tone complexes). The values of the variable parameter (e.g., tone frequencies) were drawn from two normal distributions differing only in mean. The listener's task was to identify the sound having the higher mean value of the variable parameter. Discrimination performance was found to be largely independent of the particular physical dimensions along which the sounds varied. Rather, performance appeared to depend primarily on information content of the sounds. Information content was defined in terms of a stimulus equivocation factor that was derived from the data. Based on this model, transmitted information was estimated to be between 1.0–3.0 bits. [Work supported by AFOSR.]
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Comodulation masking release with listening‐condition uncertainty (A)

Beverly A. Wright and Dennis McFadden

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S143 (1988); (1 page) | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Detectability of a 1250‐Hz tonal signal, masked by 50‐Hz‐wide noise bands centered at 850, 1050, 1250, 1450, and 1650 Hz, was determined for two listening conditions (correlated and uncorrelated) under three types of uncertainty about the listening condition. Here, “correlated” means that the temporal envelopes of all five noise bands were the same, and “uncorrelated” means that only the band centered at 1250 Hz had a temporal envelope different from the other noise bands. In the no‐uncertainty condition, all trials of a block consisted of correlated, or uncorrelated, waveforms. In the random‐by‐trial condition, correlated and uncorrelated trials were interleaved at random. In the random‐by‐observation‐interval condition, the nonsignal interval of each trial contained the same type of waveform as the signal interval only by chance. Levels of detectability, and thus the magnitude of the comodulation masking release (CMR), were essentially the same in the first two conditions. However, in the third uncertainty condition, the CMR was practically abolished, owing almost entirely to a 6–8‐dB decrease in detectability with the correlated waveforms. These results suggest a contribution of cognitive listening strategy to signal detection in comodulation masking release conditions. [Work supported by NINCDS Grant NS15895.]
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Speech masking. II. Simultaneous masking thresholds under “naturalistic” listening conditions (A)

Murray Spiegel

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S143 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This study analyzed the role of listening conditions in determining thresholds for probe tones masked by natural speech. These thresholds are of interest because they are a sensitive probe of the activity profile, or “internal” spectrum, of sounds such as speech in the auditory system. Most human performance tests are carried out under highly artificial listening conditions, which may not reflect how people listen to speech in common listening environments. In this study, a reference condition (similar to minimal uncertainty listening conditions used in many performance tests) was compared to a “naturalistic” listening condition and another, intermediate, condition. In the naturalistic listening condition, listeners did not know the frequency or the position of probe tones; additionally, they were required to attend to the semantic content of full sentences. In the reference condition, listeners knew the frequency and position of probe tones masked by single syllables. Average thresholds differed in the two conditions by 4 dB, and thresholds tended to be elevated more for higher‐frequency probe tones. The results provide previously unknown information about the resolution of speech sounds in the auditory system during speech comprehension.
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Temporal effects in vowel and consonant‐vowel masking (A)

Patricia E. Blake and Sid P. Bacon

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S143 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Masking patterns were determined using 300‐ms synthetic vowel (/u/, /a/, /i/) and consonant‐vowel (/bi/, /gi/) stimuli as maskers in a two‐interval forced‐choice experiment. Thresholds were obtained for 10‐ms sinusoids presented at 0‐ or 145‐ms delays relative to masker onset for the vowel (v) masker, and at 0‐, 40‐, or 145‐ms delays for the consonant‐vowel (CV) masker. Signal frequencies ranged from 250–3600 Hz. In general, the masking patterns reflected the shape of the masker's short‐term spectrum computed at the time of signal presentation. The 0‐ms signal delay masking patterns for /bi/ and /gi/ clearly revealed the second‐formant differences in these two stimuli. The 40‐ms delay masking patterns were similarly different, though less so, even though 40 ms corresponded to the onset of the steady‐state portion of the vowel (and thus at this delay the stimuli were identical). Formants were resolved the best for both the V and CV maskers with the 145‐ms signal delay, suggesting that the auditory system requires a certain amount of time to represent most accurately the acoustic spectrum of the masker. These temporal effects are probably related to the temporal effects observed previously with pure‐tone maskers. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Low commonality between tests of auditory discrimination and of speech perception (A)

Blas Espinoza‐Varas and Charles S. Watson

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S143 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The relation between measures of speech processing and of fine auditory discrimination abilities was investigated by means of factor analyses of the performance of normal listeners on the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities, TBAC [Watson et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 71, S72 (1982)]. The eight subtests of the TBAC include syllable identification in noise and discrimination of (a) changes in frequency, intensity, and duration in 1.0‐kHz sinusoids; (b) “jitter” within a pulse train; (c) temporal order for sinusoids and nonsense syllables; and (d) detection of single‐component changes in word‐length tonal patterns. Data were collected in a field (n = 127) and using earphones (n = 119). Test reliability was high in both presentation conditions. Average performance was slightly higher with earphones for discrimination of intensity, of tonal patterns, and in the two speech subtests. Both groups showed large ranges of individual performance on all subtests. Factor analyses revealed similar structures for both groups, consisting essentially of two factors loaded on the nonspeech tests (complex sound/pitch and duration/intensity) and a third that is mainly a speech factor. This result, and the associated inter‐test correlations, points towards only a very weak relation between listeners' measured abilities to hear out fine details of acoustic waveforms and their skill at identifying speech sounds. [Work supported by NIH and AFOSR.]
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The content of “timbre” (A)

Otoichi Kitamura

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S143 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The definition of timbre has been established by standards such as the American National Standards. According to the results of factor analytical research on sound color, the content of sound color can be well expressed by such descriptive adjectives as soft, rich, clear, etc. This aspect of sound color can be called the “impression expressed by a descriptive adjective of sound color.” Furthermore, there exists another aspect of sound that identifies the sound source such as a piano, violin, etc. Generally speaking, sound impressions are considered to occur in the following order: (1) identification of the sound source, followed by recognition of detailed sound properties such as (2) the impression expressed by the descriptive adjective of the sound color, (3) loudness, (4) pitch, and (5) sound duration. The two aspects of sound, (1) and (2), are usually recognized as sound color or timbre. Accordingly, it is desirable that the content of timbre should be understood more widely as mentioned above.
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Discrimination of missing fundamental frequency and the influence of competing pitch and timbre cues (A)

Punita G. Singh

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S143-S144 (1988); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The DL for frequency discrimination of complex tones has generally been shown to be smaller than for pure tones of equivalent F0. A notable exception is the case where “residue” tones are used [A. Faulkner, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 78, 1993–2004 (1985)]. It has been argued that the decline in performance is due to differences in timbre that make pitch discrimination difficult. The present experiment atttempts to determine such perceptual correlates of changes in fundamental frequency for complex tones presented in two‐tone sequences. All tones comprised four equal‐amplitude harmonics m, (m + 1), (m + 2), and (m + 3), with m = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. The first tone in a sequence had F0 = 200 Hz, while the second had F0 = (200 + 2n) Hz, where n = 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32. The spectral locus of tones in a pair was either the same (m,m) or different [(2,m) or (m,2)], where m and 2 denote the harmonic number of the lowest component. Listeners were required to indicate if the tones in a pair were: (1) the same, (2) different in pitch, (3) same in pitch, but different in “something else,” or (4) different both in pitch and “something else.” Results indicate that listeners use labels 1 and 2 for sequences in which tones had the same locus, with relative use of labels systematically varying across differing magnitudes of F0 change. When spectral locus changes, however, a considerable variation of responses is seen, dependent on overall spectral proximity as well as amount of change in F0. The order of locus change across tones, whether higher or lower in frequency, is another factor that influenced label choice. [Work supported by AFOSR.]
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Consonance of tones of changing frequency (A)

Kengo Ohgushi, Shuji Morishita, Tadasu Hatoh, and Koh'ichi Kurozumi

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S144-S144 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The tonal consonance of two sinusoids with a temporal change in frequency was measured in psychological experiments. The stimulus consisted of a pair of tone bursts presented simultaneously. The tone bursts were 1s in duration with a continuous change of frequency and had a fixed frequency ratio. The initial frequency of the lower tone from which the frequency change started was 400 Hz, and the rate of the frequency change was 1 oct/s. The ratios of the instantaneous frequencies were from 1.0‐2.0. Twenty‐one types of stimuli were synthesized by the computer. In the experiment, two stimuli were presented in succession to the subjects who were instructed to judge which of the two stimuli was more consonant. The results revealed the following. (1) The tonal consonance was at its minimum when the frequency ratio was around 1.05. (2) The tonal consonance increased with the increase in the frequency ratio up to around 1.2. (3) The tonal consonance kept nearly the same value and the simple frequency ratios did not result in singular points on the consonance curve when the frequency ratio was over about 1.2.
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A new pitch paradox (A)

Diana Deutsch

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S144-S144 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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A pattern of tones is described and explored that has the following paradoxical property: When transposed by a half‐octave, the identical pitches may be heard, but as reversed in time. This perceived temporal reversal may even be accomplished when the pattern is transposed by changing the speed of playback on a tape recorder. The behavior of this phenomenon under detailed parametric manipulation is described, and its implications for theories of pitch perception are discussed.
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Continuous multidimensional assessment of musical performance (A)

Seiichiro Namba and Sonoko Kuwano

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 84, Issue S1, pp. S144-S144 (1988); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This study introduces a new method for the assessment of the emotional aspect of music developed by the present authors and termed the “method of continuous judgment of selected description.” This is a method for the multidimensional assessment of a series of instantaneous impressions of a musical performance. Performances of “Pictures at an Exhibition,” composed by Moussorgsky, were used as stimuli. In presenting the results of this experiment, two main points will be discussed. The first is the relation between instantaneous impressions during performances and the overall impression when they come to an end. The second is a comparison of the structure of the music (from an analysis of the performances using the score) with the series of impressions that the subjects registered.
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