Nandini Iyer, Bret Aarden, Evelyn Hoglund, and David Huron
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 106, No. 4 (1999) pp. 2208-2209.
Sensory dissonance is known to be related to the critical band [Greenwood (1961); Plomp and Levelt (1965)]. The maximum dissonance between two pure tones has been estimated to arise when the tones are separated by roughly 40% of a critical band [Greenwood (1991)]. Sensory dissonance disappears when the tones are separated by more than a critical band. Experimental work by Kameoka and Kuriyagawa (1969) has further demonstrated that dissonance judgments are affected by intensity. Since the size of critical bands is known to increase with increasing intensity [Moore and Glasberg (1987)], it follows that listeners should locate maximum dissonance at larger frequency separations for higher intensity tones. Similarly, the point at which dissonance disappears should involve larger frequency separation for higher intensity. The results of two experiments are reported where dissonance judgments were explicitly examined in the context of intensity-induced changes in critical bandwidth. In the first experiment, listeners adjusted the frequency of one tone away from a fixed tone to the point of maximum dissonance. In the second experiment, listeners adjusted the tone to the point of just-not-noticeable dissonance. Results will be reported for 10 musician and 10 nonmusician listeners.