Example
Stimuli from Consonance Study
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 1, parts a-b (Chords and
their average pleasantness ratings):
Fig.
1a-b. Consonance Preferences. (a) Mean pleasantness ratings of
musical chords, for cohort 1 (142 listeners). (b) Description of chords
used in experiments. Ratios in stimuli approximated those listed,
because the equal-tempered scale was used.
Example consonant chords:
Sax, Perfect Fifth: