The Psychology of Music

About the Editor

Diana Deutsch is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego.

Sound Examples

Chapter 01

Chapter 1. Andrew Oxenham

II.B.1. The pitch of pure tones

The loss of melodic pitch at high frequencies.

A. The first 5 notes of the major scale, starting on 440 Hz. [major_mid.wav]

B. The first 5 notes of the minor scale, starting on 440 Hz. It is relatively easy to distinguish major from minor in the mid-frequency range. [minor_mid.wav]

C. The first 5 notes of the major scale, starting on 6600 Hz. [major_high.wav]

D. The first 5 notes of the minor scale, starting on 6600 Hz. It is much more difficult to tell major from minor in this high frequency range, and most people cannot perform this task accurately; see Oxenham et al. (2011). [minor_high.wav]

II. B.2. The pitch of complex tones.

The pitch of the missing fundamental.

A. A complex tone with a fundamental frequency (F0) of 200 Hz is played, with the first 10 harmonics present. [f0_200_full.wav]

B. The same complex tone is played, but with the F0 itself removed, so that only harmonics 2-10 are present. The pitch should be same, even though the timbre changes somewhat. [f0_200_missing.wav]

Brightness changes through changes in spectral content.

A. A complex tone with an F0 of 220 Hz is played, with harmonics 1-5 present. [complex220_lp.wav]

B. A complex tone with an F0 of 220 Hz is played, with harmonics 10-14 present. The timbre is now brighter, and the pitch salience is weaker, but the pitch remains about the same. [complex220_hp_new-1.wav]

III.D. Consonance and dissonance

Effects of inharmonicity and acoustic beats on perceived consonance and dissonance*

A musical interval of a perfect 5th [sax_fifth.wav] is generally considered more consonant or pleasing than an interval of a minor 2nd [sax_min_sec.wav]. Diagnostic laboratory stimuli were used to separate the effects of inharmonicity from the roughness produced by acoustic beats. To investigate inharmonicity, tones, which were spaced far enough apart to avoid beats, were placed in either harmonic [harm_stim1.wav] or inharmonic [inharm_stim4.wav] relation to each other. To investigate acoustic beats, the two tones were played either to the same ear [diot_high_int.wav] or to opposite ears [dich_high_int.wav]. In the case of opposite ears, acoustic beats are much less salient. It was found that ratings of inharmonicity provided a better predictor of musical consonance or dissonance than did ratings of beats; see McDermott et al. (2010). Demonstrations provided by Dr. Josh McDermott.

*This demonstration must be played over headphones.

Chapter 02

Chapter 2. Stephen McAdams The examples for Chapter 2 are presented as an 11-page Powerpoint with embedded audio examples. This can be downloaded from:

McAdams_Ch2_SoundExamples.pptx.

Chapter 06

Chapter 6 Diana Deutsch

II C. The auditory continuity effect

In this demonstration of the auditory continuity effect. First a pure tone is presented, with a clear gap in the middle. Following this, a complex tone is presented. Following this, the same pure tone is presented, with the gap filled by the complex tone. The pure tone now appears continuous. This sound demonstration is posted with kind permission of Yoshitaka Nakajima. [nakajima.wav]

IV D. The effect of pitch streaming on perception of temporal relationships.

This demonstration is by Leon Van Noorden, and is similar to one originally created by Leon Van Noorden (1975). A triplet pattern of two tones (ABA triplets) is repeatedly presented, with varying pitch distance between tones A and B. When these tones are close in pitch, a clear rhythm is heard, but as the tones diverge in pitch two pitch streams, one high corresponding to tone A and one low corresponding to tone B, are heard, and the rhythmic pattern is no longer perceived. [gallop.mp3]

Van Noorden, L. P. A. S. (1975). Temporal coherence in the perception of tone sequences (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Technische Hogeschoel Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

VIA. The scale illusion

The scale illusion was discovered by Diana Deutsch in 1973, and first published by Deutsch (1975).This pattern consists of a major scale, with successive tones alternating from ear to ear. The scale is played through earphones simultaneously in both ascending and descending form, such that whenever a tone from the ascending scale is in the right ear, a tone from the descending scale is in the left ear; and vice versa. The sequence is played repeatedly without pause. Listeners frequently experience an illusion in which the higher tones appear to be coming from one earphone and the lower tones from the other. Righthanders tend to hear the higher tones as on the right and the lower tones as on the left, but lefthanders are more varied in how the higher and lower tones are localized. [deutsch_scale_illusion.mp3]

Deutsch, D. Two-channel listening to musical scales. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1975, 57, 1156-1160.

Deutsch, D. Musical Illusions. Scientific American , 1975, 233, 92-104.

http://philomel.com/musical_illusions/scale.php

© 1995 Diana Deutsch

The glissando illusion

The glissando illusion was discovered by Diana Deutsch in 1995. The illusion should be heard through stereophonically separated loudspeakers, with one to the listener's left and the other to his right. It is produced by an oboe tone played together with a sine wave that glides up and down in pitch. The two sounds are repeatedly switched between the left and right speakers; such that when the oboe tone is in the left ear the glissando is in the right hear, and vice versa. The oboe tone is heard correctly as leaping back and forth between the speakers, however the segments of the glissando appear to be joined together seamlessly, and to move around in space in accordance with its pitch motion. [deutsch_glissando_illusion.mp3]

Deutsch, D., Hamaoui, K., and Henthorn, T. The Glissando Illusion and Handedness. Neuropsychologia, 2007, 45, 2981-2988.

Deutsch, D. Hamaoui, K. Henthorn, T. The Glissando Illusion: A spatial illusory contour in hearing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2005, 117, 2476,

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=205

© 1995 Diana Deutsch

VIB. The octave illusion

In the octave illusion and first published by Deutsch (1974)., two tones that are spaced an octave apart are alternated repeatedly at a rate of four per second. The identical sequence is presented over headphones to both ears simultaneously, except that when the right ear receives the high tone the left ear receives the low tone, and vice versa. This pattern is almost never heard correctly, and instead produces a number of illusions. Most people hear a single tone which switches from ear to ear, while its pitch simultaneously shifts back and forth between high and low. When the earphone positions are reversed most people hear the same thing: The tone that had appeared in the right ear still appears in the right ear, and the tone that had appeared in the left ear still appears in the left ear. Righthanders tend to hear the high tone on the right and the low tone on the left; however lefthanders are more varied in where the tones appear to be coming from. [deutsch_octave_illusion.wav]

Deutsch, D. An auditory illusion. Nature, 1974, 251, 307-309

Deutsch, D. Auditory illusions, handedness, and the spatial environment. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 1983, 31, 607-618.

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=202

© 1995 Diana Deutsch

VIIA. Demonstrations of pitch circularity

An eternally ascending scale produced by octave-related complexes

This scale was originally created by Roger Shepard in the 1960s. It is produced by a set of complex tones whose components are separated by octaves. The amplitudes of the components are scaled by a fixed, bell-shaped spectral envelope such that those in the middle of the musical range are highest, and those at the extremes are lowest. The pitch classes of the tones are varied by shifting all components of each tone up or down in log frequency. When these tones are played moving up in semitone steps, listeners hear an eternally ascending scale. When they move down in semitone steps listeners hear an eternally descending scale instead. [shepard_circular_scale.mp3]

Shepard, R. N. (1964). Circularity in judgments of relative pitch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 36, 2345_2353.

© 2012 Acoustical Society of America. Posted with permission from Auditory Demonstrations. Visit http://asadl.org/cds-dvds-and-videos for further information about the Auditory Demonstrations CD.

An eternally descending glissando produced by octave related complexes

This glissando was originally created by Jean-Claude Risset in the 1960s. It is also composed of octave-related complexes, but the pattern takes the form of a glissando instead of a scale. [risset_circular_glide.mp3]

Risset, J.-C. (1969). Pitch control and pitch paradoxes demonstrated with computer-synthesized sounds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 46, 88.

© 2012 Acoustical Society of America. Posted with permission from Auditory Demonstrations. Visit http://asadl.org/cds-dvds-and-videos for further information about the Auditory Demonstrations CD.

An eternally ascending scale produced by full harmonic series.

This scale was originally created by Diana Deutsch in 2004. It is produced by a sequence of tones, with each tone comprising a full harmonic series. One begins with a bank of 12 harmonic complex tones, whose fundamental frequencies range over an octave in semitone steps. For the tone with the highest fundamental, the odd and even harmonics are equal in amplitude. For the tone a semitone lower, the amplitudes of the odd harmonics are reduced relative to the even ones, so raising the perceived height of this tone. For the tone another semitone lower, the amplitudes of the odd harmonics are reduced further, so raising the perceived height of this tone to a greater extent. One continues down the octave in this way until for the tone with the lowest fundamental, the odd-numbered harmonics no longer contribute to the tone's perceived height. The tone with the lowest fundamental is therefore heard as displaced up an octave. So when these tones are played in ascending semitone steps, listeners hear an eternally ascending scale, as in this demonstration. [deutsch_circular_scale.mp3]

Deutsch, D. (2010). The paradox of pitch circularity. Acoustics Today, July Issue, 8_15.

Deutsch, D., Dooley, K., & Henthorn, T. (2008). Pitch circularity from tones comprising full harmonic series. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124, 589_597.

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=213

Chapter 07

Chapter 7 Diana Deutsch

II C. Melody recognition with tones placed haphazardly in different octaves.

1. A well-known melody is played such that all the note names (C, C#, D, and so on) are correct, but the tones are placed haphazardly in three different octaves. Although the melody is well-known, the octave displacements of the tones make it difficult to recognize. [mm_scrambled.mp3]

2. The same melody is played, with the tones correctly placed in the same octave. The melody is now easy to recognize. [mm_unscrambled.mp3]

Deutsch, D. Octave generalization and tune recognition. Perception and Psychophysics, 1972, 11, 411-412.

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=207

© 1995 Diana Deutsch

III D. Effects of temporal gaps on perception of a pitch pattern.

1. A passage is played that consists of a three-tone pattern presented times at different pitch levels (Figure 13a). The tones are equally spaced in time, and the passage is easy to perceive. [proc_a.mp3]

2. The same sequence of tones is played, with pauses placed between the successive presentations of the three-tone sequence (Figure 13b). The pitch structure is, if anything, even easier to perceive.[proc_b.mp3]

3. The same sequence of tones is played, but with pauses placed between every fourth tone, so breaking up the pitch structure (Figure 13c). Listeners form groupings based on these pauses, so that the pattern becomes difficult to perceive.

(refs) [proc_c.mp3]

Deutsch, D. (1980). The processing of structured and unstructured tonal sequences.

Perception & Psychophysics, 28, 381_389.

IV. A. Short term memory for pitch.

1. In each of these two examples, a tone is played, followed by a pause, and then by another tone that is either the same in pitch as the first or a semitone removed. Listeners find it easy to judge whether the tones are the same or different in pitch. [stm_int_pause.mp3]

2. In each of these two examples, the task is the same, except that six tones intervene between the two to be compared. Judging whether the test tones are the same or different becomes much more difficult, even though the intervening tones can be ignored. [stm_int_tones.mp3]

3. In each of these two examples, the task is the same, except that instead of six tones, six spoken numbers intervene between the tones to be compared. It is now again easy to tell whether the tones are the same or different. This shows that the pitch of a tone is held in a specialized memory store, and that interference effects take place between pitches inside this store. [stm_int_speech.mp3]

Deutsch, D. Tones and numbers: Specificity of interference in immediate memory. Science, 1970, 168, 1604-1605,

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=209

© 2003 Diana Deutsch

V. A. The tritone paradox.

The basic pattern that produces the tritone paradox consists of two successively presented tones that are related by a half-octave. (This interval is called a tritone). The tones are so constructed that their note names (C, C#, D, and so on) are clearly defined, but they are ambiguous with respect to which octave they are in. When one tone of a pair is played, followed by the second, some people hear an ascending pattern. But other people, on listening to the identical pair of tones, hear a descending pattern instead. Furthermore, different people hear these patterns in different ways. When one of these tone pairs is played a listener might hear a descending pattern. Yet when a different tone pair is played, the same listener hears an ascending pattern instead. Yet another listener might hear the first pattern as ascending and the second pattern as descending. The present demonstration presents six such tone pairs. This effect is best heard in a group situation with listeners providing feedback, so that they can observe the striking individual differences in how this pattern is perceived.

[tritone_paradox.mp3]

Deutsch, D. The tritone paradox: An influence of language on music perception. Music Perception, 1991, 8, 335-347

Deutsch, D. A musical paradox. Music Perception, 1986, 3, 275-280

Deutsch, D. Some new pitch paradoxes and their implications. In Auditory Processing of Complex Sounds. Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, 1992, 336, 391-397

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=206

© 1995 Diana Deutsch

VI. The speech-to-song illusion

In this demonstration, speech is made to be heard as song, simply by repeating a phrase several times over. This shows that the boundary between speech and song is very fragile. The demonstration consists of three parts:

1. The original sentence, followed by a spoken phrase that was embedded in it, repeated ten times. After several repetitions, the phrase appears to sound like song, with the pitches as in Demonstration 2. [sometimes_w_repetition.mp3]

2. Piano rendition of the melody that is heard after several repetitions. [sometimes_piano.mp3]

3. The original sentence presented again. May people find that it begins to sound as speech, but when it arrives at the phrase that has been repeated, it appears suddenly to change into song. [sometimes_sentence_only.mp3]

Deutsch, D., Henthorn, T., and Lapidis, R. Illusory transformation from speech to song. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2011, 129, 2245-2252,

Deutsch, D., Lapidis, R., and Henthorn, T. The Speech-to-Song Illusion. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2008, November, 124, 2471,

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=212

© 2003 Diana Deutsch

Chapter 09

Examples for Chapter 9. Henkjan Honing

Examples accompanying Chapter 9: Structure and interpretation of rhythm in music by Henkjan Honing. In Deutsch, D. (ed.), Psychology of Music, 3rd edition (pp. 369-404). London: Academic Press.

1. Rhythmic Pattern and Timing: Categorization

   (cf. page 375). This link to a web-based demonstration allows one to explore the experimental data and results of a study on rhythmic categorization (Desain & Honing, 2003). At the bottom of the demo the various experimental conditions are indicated. The ternary plot (cf. page 373) shows the responses for the different stimuli. When you click on a point in the map the corresponding stimulus is shown at the right-hand side. You can play the stimulus and click on the response label to see the subjects responses in music notation.

2. Beat induction as a Fundamental Cognitive Skill

   (cf. page 382). This link provides additional information on the study with newborns on beat induction (Winkler et al., 2009)

3. Tempo and Timing: Perceptual Invariance

   (cf. page 383). This link is an example of a listening experiment to study the relation between tempo and timing (e.g., Honing & Ladinig, 2006).

4. Interview (2002)

   This link refers to a subtitled video on rhythm perception and beat induction as an important topic for cognitive science.

5. TED Talk (2012)

   This link refers to a TEDx talk with the title 'What makes us musical animals', suggesting beat induction to be a fundamental musical skill.

www.musiccognition.nl

video

Chapter 16

Sounds and video for Ch 16 Patel and Demorest.

Responses of tamarin monkeys to consonant and dissonant musical sequences [consonant_wav]. The consonant stimulus consisted of a sequence of chords composed of the octave, the fifth, and the fourth.

[dissonant_wav]. The dissonant stimuli consisted of a sequence of chords composed of minor seconds, tritones, and minor ninths.

While the human subjects showed a preference for the consonant stimuli, the tamarin monkeys showed no preference.

McDermott, J. H., & Hauser, M. D. (2004). Are consonant intervals music to their ears? Spontaneous acoustic preferences in a nonhuman primate. Cognition, 94, B11_B21.

Monkey music expressing emotion

[threat-based tamarin music]

The voice of an upset monkey mobbing a human. [upset_monkey_call.mp3]

Voice of the same monkey who has calmed down somewhat. [calmer_monkey_call.mp3]

Two passages composed by David Teie based on fear and threat calls of the tamarin. When played to the monkeys, they displayed more symptoms of anxiety.

© copyright David Teie, 2010. [anxiety_music1.mp3], [anxiety_music2.mp3]

Music composed by David Teie that calms and sooths the tamarins. When played to the monkeys, it appeared to have a calming effect on them. [threat-based tamarin music.mp3]

Snowdon, C. T., & Teie, D. (2010). Affective responses in tamarins elicited by species specific music. Biology Letters, 6, 30v32.

© copyright David Tiei, 2010

Spntaneous synchronizing to the musical beat by a sulphur-crested cockatoo

This video of the sulphur-crested cockatoo named Snowball, illustrating spontaneous synchronizing his movements to the beat of human music.

Patel, A. D., Iversen, J. R., Bregman, M. R., & Schulz, I. (2009). Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Current Biology, 19, 827_830.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cross-cultural memory performance

These stimuli are taken from a study by Demorest, Morrison, Beken & Jungbluth (2008) on cross-cultural memory performance. There is one sample file from each culture (Chinese, Turkish, Western) along with the two targets and two foils that were used in the subsequent memory task. For the study, musically trained and untrained subjects from the United States and Turkey listened to three longer excerpts per culture followed by a 12-item memory test. Western & Turkish music served as home cultures, while Chinese music served as the "other" culture for both groups. All participants were significantly better at remembering novel music from their native culture and there were no performance differences based on musical expertise.

[Chinese 1]

[Chinese 1 Excerpt 1]

[Chinese 1 Excerpt 2]

[Chinese 1 Foil 1]

[Chinese 1 Foil 2]

[Turkish 1]

[Turkish 1 Excerpt 1]

[Turkish 1 Excerpt 2]

[Turkish 1 Foil 1]

[Turkish 1 Foil 2]

[Western 1]

[Western 1 Excerpt 1]

[Western 1 Excerpt 2]

[Western 1 Foil 1]

[Western 1 Foil 2]

Demorest, S.M.,Morrison,S.J.,Beken,M.N.,& Jungbluth,D.(2008).Lost in translation: an enculturation effect in music memory performance. Music Perception, 25, 213_223

Cross- cultural perception of emotion.

The following stimuli were used in the Balkwill, Thompson & Matsunaga (2004). study of cross-cultural emotion perception. Japanese listeners rated the expression of joy, anger and sadness in Japanese, Western, and Hindustani music. Excerpts were also rated for tempo, loudness, and complexity. Listeners were sensitive to the intended emotion in music from all three cultures, and judgments of emotion were related to judgments of acoustic cues.

[02_Hindustani_Sad-1.mp3]

[6.2.1_Hinustani_anger-1.mp3]

[Japanese_Sad-2.mp3]

[Western_Sad-1.mp3]

Balkwill, L. L., Thompson, W. F., & Matsunaga, R. (2004). Recognition of emotion in

Japanese, Western, and Hindustani music by Japanese listeners. Japanese Psychological Research, 46, 337_349. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5584.2004.00265.x.

Balkwill, L.L., & Thompson, W. F. (1999). A cross-cultural investigation of the perception of emotion in music: Psychophysical and cultural cues. Music Perception, 17, 43–64.