Subject: Re: AUDITORY Digest - 9 May 2002 to 10 May 2002 (#2002-72) From: "Andrew D. Lyons" <tstex(at)TSTEX.COM> Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 15:59:35 +1000<SNIP from below > This is just a conjecture; there's nothing rigorous about it. Actually this is very good conjecture. It corresponds exactly to what is described as "physiognomic perception" in: -- Davies, John Booth. 1978. The Psychology of Music. Stanford University Press. and: Dailey, Audrey, R. 1995. Creativity, Primary Process Thinking, Synesthesia, and Physiognomic Perception. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Maine. -- Relationships between vertical height for pitch, brightness for spectra, and image shape for sonic morphology are also described here. Cheers > Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:18:50 -0500 > From: beauchamp james w <j-beauch(at)UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU> > Subject: Re: brightness > > Chen-Gia Tsai wrote: > > I am interested in analogues between visual and auditory processing. > > > > We describe sounds rich in high-frequency harmonics "bright". This adjective > > is apparently universal. Why do we use such a visual concept to describe an > > auditory feature? > > (snip) > > Here's an idea. For whatever reasons, we seem to associate high > frequencies with physical height, perhaps because high frequencies > travel in straight lines and they tend to transmit at some height > whereas low frequencies can creep and crawl over terrain. Or maybe > because a lot of birds make high pitches but big animals that hug > the ground make low pitches. Now, the sun is also high and very > bright, and we look up to see the sun. So we look up to see the > sun and we point our ears up to hear high frequencies, and thus > we may associate height with increased brightness, and thus high > frequencies with increased brightness. If there are a lot of > strong high frequencies in a sound, we will hear "higher" and > thus it will sound brighter. > > This is just a conjecture; there's nothing rigorous about it. > > Several researchers have found the spectral centroid, which > correlates strongly with "brightness" or "sharpness" verbal > attributes, to be an important, perhaps the most important, > single characteristic for distinguishing amongst sound spectra. > > See for example, > > von Bismark, G. (1974). "Sharpness as an attribute of the timbre > of steady sounds", Acustica, 30(3), pp. 159-172. > > Jim Beauchamp > University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign > > ------------------------------ > > End of AUDITORY Digest - 9 May 2002 to 10 May 2002 (#2002-72) > ************************************************************* -- ========================================================== Andrew D Lyons | Time Space Texture | http://www.tstex.com ==========================================================