The Tritone Paradox and the Pitch Range of the Speaking Voice: A Dubious Connection

1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno H. Repp

Deutsch and coworkers (Deutsch, 1991; Deutsch, North, & Ray, 1990) have proposed that individual differences in the perception of the "tritone paradox" derive from listeners' reference to a mental pitch template, acquired through experience with the pitch range of their own voice, as well as with the voice ranges typical of their language community. These authors have reported a correspondence between perceptual results and the upper limit of the individual voice range for a small group of selected subjects, as well as a striking difference in tritone perception between American and British listeners. The present study compared groups of Dutch, British, and American listeners on two tritone tests and also collected voice pitch data for the first two groups in a reading task. There was no within-group correlation of perceptual results with individual differences in voice range. Differences in tritone perception as a function of stimulus characteristics (spectral envelope) were much larger than reported by Deutsch, which casts doubt on the notion of stable individual pitch templates. A significant difference between British and American listeners, with the Dutch group in between, was found in one of the two tritone tests but not in the other. Although the origin of this difference remains unclear, it seems unlikely that it has anything to do with regional differences in voice pitch range.

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch

The tritone paradox is produced when two tones that are related by a half- octave (or tritone) are presented in succession. Each tone is composed of a set of octave- related harmonics, whose amplitudes are determined by a bell-shaped spectral envelope; thus the tones are clearly defined in terms of pitch class, but poorly defined in terms of height. When listeners judge whether such tone pairs form ascending or descending patterns, their judgments generally show systematic relationships to the positions of the tones along the pitch-class circle: Tones in one region of the circle are heard as higher and those in the opposite region are heard as lower. However, listeners disagree substantially as to whether a given tone pair forms an ascending or a descending pattern, and therefore as to which tones are heard as higher and which as lower. This paper demonstrates that the basis for the individual differences in perception of this musical pattern lies in the language spoken by the listener. Two groups of subjects made judgments of the tritone paradox. One group had grown up in California, and the other group had grown up in southern England. It was found that when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as ascending the English group tended to hear it as descending, and when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as descending the English group tended to hear it as ascending. This finding, coupled with the earlier results of Deutsch, North, and Ray (1990) that showed a correlate between perception of the tritone paradox and the pitch range of the listener's spontaneous speaking voice, indicates strongly that the same, culturally acquired representation of pitch classes influences both speech production and perception of this musical pattern.


1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ragozzine ◽  
Diana Deutsch

A previous study (Deutsch, 1991) demonstrated a striking difference in perception of the tritone paradox between subjects who had grown up in two different geographical regions. Specifically, a group of subjects who had grown up in California were compared with a group who had grown up in the South of England. When the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as ascending, the English group tended to hear it as descending, and vice versa. This raises the question of whether regional differences also exist within the United States in the way this pattern is perceived. The present study examined the percepts of subjects who had grown up in Mahoning and/or Trumbull counties in Ohio. Two groups were compared: those whose parents had also grown up in this area and those for whom this was not the case. A highly significant difference between these two groups of subjects was obtained, with those in the latter group producing a distribution of percepts similar to that found among Californians and those in the former group producing a different distribution. From this and other analyses of the data, it is concluded that regional differences in perception of the tritone paradox do indeed exist within the United States and that there is in addition an effect of familial background.


Author(s):  
Dian Rizky Amalia

This article addresses the reality learning showed us that they did not agree to a significant difference in how much success end. Here psychologists assert that differences in learning outcomes need to go back to the individual differences among student. Cleared that the use of the most skilled educated is in fact different from the strategies that will be used by the least educated skill. Motivation refers to the desire to achieve aims, and effort is given in this way, and satisfaction for the task. There are ways and methods consistent with those that may not fit with the others to the presence of differences in ability and inclination, that the most successful strategy chosen by the teacher after studying and evaluating strategic wiyh all student, can even be used for the approval of a learning program learners. In accordance with the needs of society and the interests of any individual discovery and development capabilities. Keywords: individual differences, cognitive factors, emotional factors


Author(s):  
Walter S. Reiter

The Early Music revival has had far-reaching consequences on how music of the past is performed, both by specialists and non-specialists. This timely book is a practical step-by-step course of lessons for violinists and violists in both these categories, covering the interpretation, technique, culture, and historical background of the Baroque violin repertoire. Written by a violinist and teacher specializing in Baroque music over many years, it guides readers from the basics (how to hold the violin) to Bach, via music from a wide variety of styles. Avoiding obscure musicological jargon, it is eminently readable and accessible. Packed with information, detailed observations on the music under discussion, and relevant quotations from historical and contemporary sources, it covers everything the Baroque violin student should know and may be considered the equivalent of two to three years of individual lessons. The book contains over 100 exercises devised for and tested on students over the years. The author’s holistic approach is evident through the exercises aimed at bringing out the individual voice of each student, and his insistence that what happens within, the identification and manipulation of affects, is a vital part of successful performance. Imitating the voice, both spoken and sung, is a constant theme, beginning with the simple device of playing words. There are fifty lessons, including five Ornamentation Modules and ones on specific topics: temperament, rhetoric, the affects, and so on. All the music, transcribed for both violin and viola, is downloadable from the website, where there is also a series of videos.


1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch ◽  
Tom North ◽  
Lee Ray

In the tritone paradox, two tones are presented that are related by a halfoctave. Each tone consists of a set of octave-related sinusoids whose amplitudes are scaled by a bell-shaped spectral envelope; thus the usual cues to height attribution are missing. When listeners judge whether such tone pairs form ascending or descending patterns, judgments are related in an orderly fashion to the positions of the tones along the pitch class circle: Tones in one region of the circle are heard as higher and those in the opposite region as lower. However, listeners differ strikingly in the orientation of the pitch-class circle with respect to height. So far, the basis of the tritone paradox and the reasons for the individual differences in its manifestation have proved elusive. In the present study, a correlation is found between perception of the tritone paradox and the range of fundamental frequencies of the listener's speaking voice. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a close connection between the perception of a musical pattern on the one hand and the listener's speech characteristics on the other.


1978 ◽  
Vol 46 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1319-1327
Author(s):  
S. R. Cobb ◽  
Maureen A. McCrossan

This paper discusses the possibility there is a difference between men and women in foveal tritanopia. The discussion is based on a study carried out by Cobb and McCrossan in 1973 in which they measured the luminosity curves of the fovea in five women and five men. The instrument used was a Wright colorimeter which measured the luminosity curves with a 2° 12′ field and a 0° 12.5′ field. Comparison shows a loss of sensitivity to blue for the curve obtained with die 0° 12.5′ field relative to the curve obtained with the 2° 12′ field. Male subjects obtained two maxima with die 0° 12.5′ field, usually at 555 nm and 595 nm, whereas for females on maximum, usually at 555 nm and from 555 nm to the long wavelength end of the spectrum, curves followed loosely the curve obtained with the 2° 12′ field. Thus, a significant difference was found between the males and the females in their response to the longer wavelengths when the 0° 12.5′ (0° 12.5′) field was used. In addition to this there were also large individual differences in the matching points obtained by the males while the individual differences among the females were much smaller.


Author(s):  
Heiko Strunk

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Der Rhythmus wählt mich und erstrahlt in mirIch bin der Geige Klang, nicht ihr SpielerMahmud Darwish Als literarischer Veranstalter mit Schwerpunkt Poesie hatte die Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, Initiatorin von Lyrikline und 2016 in Haus für Poesie umbenannt, vor 1998 bereits viele überzeugende Erfahrungen mit den ≫Berliner Sommernächten der Lyrik≪ gemacht, sodass von Anfang an klar war, dass Stimme und Vortrag bei unserem Vorhaben eine zentrale Rolle spielen müssen. Als wir anfingen, wollten wir mit Lyrikline eine Anlaufstelle im Internet schaffen, die jedem die Möglichkeit bietet, einfach und unaufwendig mit zeitgenössischer Poesie in Kontakt zu kommen, dieser vermeintlich schwierigen, von vielen respektvoll ignorierten und im Buchladen mit schwindend knappem Platz abgespeisten und zu oft bleischweren Materie. LyriklinePoets on the Internet in Their Own Voices This article is an overview of Lyrikline, a website that presents contemporary German and international poetry in text and sound. Users can hear the poems recited in the poet‘s own voice and can read the poem in the original language and in various translations. About 1,500 poets can be currently heard on the website, all with their individual poetic and poetological characteristics. Those interested in children’s and young adult poetry will find contemporary poems in the category ≫Poetry for Children≪ (under Genres & Aspects). Above all, Lyrikline offers the voice, sound, and performance of the poet and the poem. Aside from this fascinating authenticity, the listener gets to hear beyond the individual voice and timbre of the poet, as the tonal aspects of a poem, the phonetic references and the rhythmic structures become audible. Rhymes, assonances, and alliterations unfold to their full effect, stricter stanza forms reveal their structure audibly, and mood, intensity, and even pathos, may manifest itself. Lyrikline demonstrates why poetry must be heard to be fully appreciated.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVEN CONNOR

AbstractThe voice has often been identified with the assertion of idiosyncrasy or exception (The Chanting Crowd: ‘We are all individuals!’ An Individual: ‘I'm not.’ Monty Python,The Life of Brian). This article explores why humans (though not uniquely them) feel urged to merge and magnify the individual voice through assimilating it to the voices of others. What are the powers, menaces, and satisfactions of these singular–plural megavoices, in choirs, collective chants, and other forms of what may be calledchorality, that have become more familiar than ever in the mass spectacles (‘audicles’?) of sport, entertainment, and politics? I suggest that the chorus represents the challenge of the inchoate, in that it is the making manifest of what menaces music, the matter that must be made into form, a reservoir of unschooled energy that must be converted to information. I suggest that there may be an implicit relation between the individual voice and the collective voice it may seem to convoke, such that every individual vocality has a connection to a phantasmal chorality. Finally, I consider the political force of chorality, and the fantasy focused on and through the collective voice, and what this means in a world that seems to have moved from the dominion of the mass to that of the multitude.


2002 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 967-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Schueller ◽  
Donald Fucci ◽  
Z. S. Bond

This study investigated the perceptual judgment of voice pitch. 24 individuals were assigned to two groups to assess whether there is a difference in perceptual judgment of voice during pitch-matching tasks. Group I, Naïve listeners, had no previous experience in anatomy, physiology, or voice pitch-evaluation methods. Group II, Experienced listeners, were master's level speech-language pathologists having completed academic training in evaluation of voice. Both groups listened to identical stimuli, which required matching audiotaped voice-pitch samples of a male and female voice to a note on an electronic keyboard. The experiment included two tasks. The first task assessed pitch range, which required marching of the lowest and highest voice pitch of both a male and female speaker singing /a/ to a note on a keyboard. The second task assessed habitual pitch, which required matching of the voice pitch of a word spoken by a male and female speaker to a note on a keyboard. A one-way analysis of variance indicated a significant difference between groups occurred for only one of four conditions measured, perceptual judgment of the female pitch range. No differences between groups were found in the perceptual judgments of the male pitch range or during perceptual judgment of the female or male habitual pitch, suggesting that the skill possessed by speech-language pathology students is no different from that of inexperienced listeners.


1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 589-592
Author(s):  
Marc A. Sullivan ◽  
George J. Boggs ◽  
Kathryn M. Dobroth

This study investigated the ability of trained diagnosticians to alter their strategies in situations where either time or testing must be kept to a minimum. Four subjects, extensively trained in previous experiments on fault diagnosis, participated in time bonus and testing efficiency bonus conditions. They isolated faults in networks of 25 nodes connected by links. In the time bonus condition, subjects were rewarded for the number of problems completed within a time limit. In the test bonus condition, subjects were rewarded for minimizing the number of tests used to diagnose a fault. Total diagnosis time was lower in the time bonus condition, and the number of tests was lower in the test bonus condition. In the time bonus condition, subjects tended to make initial tests more rapidly than they did in the test bonus condition, and the location of initial tests was relatively “shallow” in the network. The between-subject variability in diagnosis time was larger in the test bonus condition than in the time bonus condition. There was no significant difference for between-subject variability in testing efficiency. These results suggest two important conclusions regarding fault diagnosis. First, trained diagnosticians can rapidly adapt their diagnosis strategies to changes in their problem domain. Second, explicit payoffs can, in some cases, reduce the individual differences in fault diagnosis performance. This appears to be partly due to strategies becoming more similar under explicit payoffs. It is suggested that in future studies the use of explicit payoffs should be considered.


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