Perception strategies for violin sounds.
Rolf Bader · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2009
Subjects use different perception strategies when listening to violin tones coming from realistic and from unrealistic violin geometries. The perception of realistic-geometry violin top plate tones is based on pattern recognition using multiple sound features. In a multidimensional scaling method, experiment subjects were able to linearly sort sounds according to linear geometric changes of the violin top plate only as long as the geometry was within realistic limits. Here learned sound features of brightness of different spectral bands were detected and clearly associated with features of the violin geometry. When unrealistic-geometry sounds were presented, the perception strategy changed and only relations between single spectral bands and perceived sound similarities could be observed. In a second experiment, the back plate was investigated likewise where no pattern recognition could be found, because the back plate is radiating much less and so the overall violin timbre known to subjects is the top rather than the back plate one. The sounds were produced by a whole body computer physical model simulation, where the violin top and back plates were changed in thickness within the range 1–3 mm in steps of 0.25 mm playing a virtual open e-string.