Example Stimuli from Consonance Study, page 3

These pages contain example stimuli from the paper "Individual Differences Reveal the Acoustic Basis of Consonance" by McDermott, Lehr, and Oxenham (Current Biology, 2010). The paper can be downloaded here.
Quicktime must be installed for the sounds to play. Headphones are essential for the third page as the stimuli there are dichotically presented.
**Please note - sound files make take a few seconds to load. If not all sound load, please try refreshing the page.**

Figure 2, parts b&d(Beating test stimuli and their average pleasantness ratings):

Fig. 2b&d. Beating Test Stimuli. (b) Schematic frequency spectra for beating test stimuli. Each stimulus was a pair of pure tones (single frequencies), and was presented diotically (both tones to both ears), or dichotically (one tone to each ear). (d) Mean pleasantness ratings of beating test stimuli as well as some others from the study (see second page of examples). Dichotic presentation largely eliminates beating as the two frequencies do not interact in the peripheral auditory system, and as a result produces higher ratings.

Example diotic tone pairs (audible beating):
We include the larger of the two intervals used.

Low Frequency:

Middle Frequency:

High Frequency:

Example dichotic tone pairs (same two frequencies, but inaudible beating):

Low Frequency:

Middle Frequency:

High Frequency:

Example single pure tone, for comparison (also does not have beating, even without headphones):

Low Frequency:

Although listeners prefer the dichotic tone pairs to the diotic, presumably indicating that beating is unpleasant, the size of this preference bore little relation to the size of their preference for consonant over dissonant chords, indicating that beating does not play a large role in consonance preference, and is instead largely an orthogonal variable.

First Page of Stimuli      Third Page of Stimuli

Back