Dr Imre Lahdelma imre.d.lahdelma@durham.ac.uk
Honorary Fellow
Cultural familiarity and musical expertise impact the pleasantness of consonance/dissonance but not its perceived tension
Lahdelma, I.; Eerola, T.
Authors
Professor Tuomas Eerola tuomas.eerola@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Abstract
The contrast between consonance and dissonance is vital in making music emotionally meaningful. Consonance typically denotes perceived agreeableness and stability, while dissonance disagreeableness and a need of resolution. This study addresses the perception of consonance/dissonance in single intervals and chords with two empirical experiments conducted online. Experiment 1 explored the perception of a representative sample of intervals and chords to investigate the overlap between the seven most used concepts (Consonance, Smoothness, Purity, Harmoniousness, Tension, Pleasantness, Preference) denoting consonance/dissonance in all the available (60) empirical studies published since 1883. The results show that the concepts exhibit high correlations, albeit these are somewhat lower for non-musicians compared to musicians. In Experiment 2 the stimuli’s cultural familiarity was divided into three levels, and the correlations between the key concepts of Consonance, Tension, Harmoniousness, Pleasantness, and Preference were further examined. Cultural familiarity affected the correlations drastically across both musicians and non-musicians, but in different ways. Tension maintained relatively high correlations with Consonance across musical expertise and cultural familiarity levels, making it a useful concept for studies addressing both musicians and non-musicians. On the basis of the results a control for cultural familiarity and musical expertise is recommended for all studies investigating consonance/dissonance perception.
Citation
Lahdelma, I., & Eerola, T. (2020). Cultural familiarity and musical expertise impact the pleasantness of consonance/dissonance but not its perceived tension. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 8693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65615-8
| Journal Article Type | Article |
|---|---|
| Acceptance Date | Apr 29, 2020 |
| Online Publication Date | May 26, 2020 |
| Publication Date | 2020 |
| Deposit Date | May 1, 2020 |
| Publicly Available Date | May 27, 2020 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Electronic ISSN | 2045-2322 |
| Publisher | Nature Research |
| Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
| Volume | 10 |
| Article Number | 8693 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65615-8 |
| Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1265026 |
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