Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: McDermott JH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2885564 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
McDermott Josh H JH Lehr Andriana J AJ Oxenham Andrew J AJ
Current biology : CB 20100520 11
Some combinations of musical notes are consonant (pleasant), whereas others are dissonant (unpleasant), a distinction central to music. Explanations of consonance in terms of acoustics, auditory neuroscience, and enculturation have been debated for centuries. We utilized individual differences to distinguish the candidate theories. We measured preferences for musical chords as well as nonmusical sounds that isolated particular acoustic factors--specifically, the beating and the harmonic relation ...[more]