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Tonal fusion of consonant musical intervals: The oomph in Stumpf

1987; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3758/bf03208216

1532-5962

Lucinda A. DeWitt, Robert G. Crowder,

Music and Audio Processing

Three experiments investigated Stumpfs fusion principle of tonal consonance. In Experiment 1, subjects listened to single tones or to tone pairs that represented 12 musical intervals and indicated whether they thought one or two tones had sounded. The fusion principle would be supported by an increase in reaction times or errors in response to conventionally consonant intervals as opposed to dissonant ones. A significant main effect of interval size was found in the error data of Experiment 1, with the most errors produced by intervals of an octave (12 semitones). Experiment 2 compared a smaller set of intervals in distinguishing two- from three-tone combinations. A significant main effect of interval size was found in both the response time and error data in a direction consistent with the fusion principle. Experiment 3 investigated an explanation of the fusion principle based on the harmonic series. In three-tone combinations, more fusion of the higher pair of tones was observed when the lower pair formed an octave or perfect fifth than when the lower pair formed a tritone. Fusion may represent a tendency for people to interpret pitch combinations that could represent harmonics resulting from a single fundamental as timbres rather than as chords.