Subject: Words that Describe Timbre: a Survey From: Mihir Sarkar <mihir@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 22:58:27 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hi, Do you listen to music? Do you play music? Whatever your musical style, we would love to hear what you have to say on the sounds of music! We are looking for English-speaking individuals who are willing to describe sounds using everyday words. Results from this study will be used to find whether people use a common vocabulary to describe sounds, and how a person's musical background affects his or her choice of words. Ultimately we plan to build a system to describe sounds automatically based on their audio characteristics, and thus facilitate their retrieval from a database, and an audio processing engine to modify sounds using everyday words instead of non-intuitive technical parameters. In this survey, which we have strived to make interactive and fun, you will hear one or more sounds and will be asked to describe them by choosing words presented to you or by using your own words. This survey will take around 10 minutes at the minimum, but if you enjoy it you can continue for longer! :-) You can take the survey online at: http://www.media.mit.edu/~y_yang/perceptual Please note that you need a multimedia computer with headphones or speakers. For more information, please contact: Mihir Sarkar(mihir@xxxxxxxx, 617-253-0619), or Yang Yang (y_yang@xxxxxxxx, 978-430-0827). Thanks! Mihir -- Mihir Sarkar Graduate Research Assistant Music, Mind and Machine Group MIT Media Lab +1 (617) 253-0619 mihir@xxxxxxxx http://www.media.mit.edu/~mihir