Perception of pitch and timbre by musically trained and untrained listeners.
In 2 experiments the author investigated how musicians and nonmusicians differentially perceive the dimensions of pitch and timbre. A categorization task was used in Experiment 1 to assess Ss' ability to identify how 2 consecutively presented tones changed along these dimensions. A speeded classification task was used in Experiment 2 to measure Ss' ability to ignore or take advantage of information in 1 dimension while attending to the other. The 2 groups differed in the degree to which variation along the dimensions influenced responses. Timbre variation affected nonmusicians' judgments of pitch more than the reverse. Musicians showed no such asymmetry.
Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210-1222.
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Pitt
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology