Multidimensional scaling of synthetic musical timbre: Perception of spectral and temporal characteristics.

Investigated the perceptual correlates of acoustic parameters involved in musical timbre by examining judgements of timbre dissimilarity. Nine synthetic sounds were created, derived from crossing 3 levels of spectral and temporal parameters (number of harmonics and rise time). Two separate conditions were tested, 1 using single tones, the other using short melodies. 15 musically untrained 20–47 yr olds were presented with pairs of stimuli and judged dissimilarity on an 8-point scale. The spatial configuration resulting from multidimensional analysis of the data was best fit by a 3 dimensional model, with the 1st 2 dimensions accounting for most of the variance. The perceptual space derived from the analysis indicates that these 2 orthogonal dimensions corresponded closely to the spectral and temporal differences inherent to the stimuli. Similar results were obtained with both melodies and single tones. A 2nd experiment replicated the findings despite the introduction of random loudness variation. It is concluded that even musically unselected subjects are sensitive to spectral and temporal information in musical tones, and are able to use them independently in making perceptual judgements of musical timbre. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)