Abstract
Three experiments investigated Stumpfs fusion principle of tonal consonance. In Experiment 1, subjects listened to single tones or to tone pairs that represented 12 musical intervals and indicated whether they thought one or two tones had sounded. The fusion principle would be supported by an increase in reaction times or errors in response to conventionally consonant intervals as opposed to dissonant ones. A significant main effect of interval size was found in the error data of Experiment 1, with the most errors produced by intervals of an octave (12 semitones). Experiment 2 compared a smaller set of intervals in distinguishing two- from three-tone combinations. A significant main effect of interval size was found in both the response time and error data in a direction consistent with the fusion principle. Experiment 3 investigated an explanation of the fusion principle based on the harmonic series. In three-tone combinations, more fusion of the higher pair of tones was observed when the lower pair formed an octave or perfect fifth than when the lower pair formed a tritone. Fusion may represent a tendency for people to interpret pitch combinations that could represent harmonics resulting from a single fundamental as timbres rather than as chords.
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Preparation of this article was supported under a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship to Lucinda DeWitt and by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 82-19661 to Robert Crowder. The authors appreciate the use of facilities at Haskins Laboratories (N1CHD Contract N01 HD52910) and the assistance of Bruno Repp in stimulus analysis. A preliminary version of Experiment 1 was conducted by the second author with Richard E. Pollinger in December 1957. This was a project for an introductory psychology course at the University of Michigan. The late Professor Carl Brown suggested the idea behind the study and the methodology for testing it.
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Dewitt, L.A., Crowder, R.G. Tonal fusion of consonant musical intervals: The oomph in Stumpf. Perception & Psychophysics 41, 73–84 (1987). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208216
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208216