Subject: Re: How to classify/categorize sounds From: Brian Gygi <bgygi(at)INDIANA.EDU> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:04:21 -0500Pawel, In the Hearing Communication Laboratory at Indiana University, we have run a series of studies on precisely the types of sounds you are describing (which we call environmental sounds). One study involved similarity ratings of a large inventory of environmental sounds (Gygi, B., Kidd, G. R., & Watson, C. S. (2000). Identification and similarity judgments of environmental sounds. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 107, Pt. 2, 2820.) which were then analyzed using MDS. The first dimension of the 2-D MDS solution corresponded quite well (multiple r = 0.81) with spectrally-based measures such as Spectral SD, Pitch Salience, and Spectral Centroid Velocity. The second dimension had weaker but significant correlations with measures of rhythmicity and continuity such as the number of peaks and % of silence, as well as the number of peaks in the autocorrelation function (which would reflect periodicity). There were also significant correlations with measures indicating the presence of high frequency energy, such as the Spectral Mean. A multiple regression solution on these variables yielded r = 0.69. One hypothesis is that the second dimension reflects something of the event generating the sound. Impact sounds (basketballs, claps), which clustered on the high end of dimension 2, tend to be less continuous and have more high transients than water-based sounds (waves, toilets), which clustered on the lower end. Of course, these results were found with humans. It is hard to say whether other animals would respond to the same dimensions, although one would hope we are not THAT different from them. If you would like any more information feel free to contact me. Brian Gygi Indiana University Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Pawel Kusmierek wrote: > I run animal experiments which involve sound recognition > and/ordiscrimination. Many various sound stimuli are used (e.g., > tones, instruments, animal sounds (including birds), machines, > artficial sounds, knocks, bells etc.). Is it possible to describe > quantitatively such various sounds (along multiple dimensions, I > suppose) in order to find quantitative indices of dfference, either in > multidimensional space, or along a single dimension? > > Any help would be greatly appreciated. > > Pawel Kusmierek > > > ************************************* > > Pawel Kusmierek > Department of Neurophysiology > Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology > 3, Pasteur St., 02-093 Warsaw, Poland > > tel. (48-22) 659 85 71 ex 379 > fax (48-22) 822 53 42 > E-mail pq(at)nencki.gov.pl > Or: > kusmierek(at)yahoo.com > kusmierek(at)poczta.arena.pl > ICQ 11740175 > >