THE INFLUENCE OF PRESENTATION TIME ASYNCHRONY ON MUSIC INTERVAL PERCEPTION
Abstract
<p>The art of music originates in the interaction of a listener with patterns of sound and silences unfolded across event time. The perception of sounds in music is based on the listener’s ability to attend to selected acoustical signals and to organize the resulting sound images into perceptual units at varying levels of abstraction ( Deutsch, 1982 ). Like all acoustic phenomena, the organization of music sounds is directly related to the physical characteristics of the signal ( Balzano, 1986 ; Deutsch, 1982 ; Sloboda, 1985 ). These qualities of sound are frequency, time, and intensity, with which all variations in acoustical signals are possible.</p> <p>Discernment of multiple sound images is clearly illustrated in music perception in which a listener apprehends separate simultaneous complex tones and organizes them into meaningful relationships. Sloboda (1985) proposes, “The principal characteristic of music is that sounds stand in significant relation to one another, not in isoladon” (p. 154). Groupings occur because, “elements belonging to an event are maximally similar and predictable, whereas elements belonging to different events are maximally dissimilar” ( Handel, Weaver, & Lawson, 1983 , p. 637).</p> <p>The perception of music intervals has been the subject of considerable study by