Pitch Scales
Don Lewis · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1942
Experiments were conducted to secure data for constructing and comparing pitch scales. Eighteen advanced graduate students in psychology served as subjects. The following observational methods (all variations of the method of equal sense distances) were used: (1) bisection, (2) fractionation, and (3) equating supraliminal pitch extents. The extents involved in (3) were a little greater than a full tone. The scales derived from the various sets of data were compared not only with each other but also with the scales reported by Stevens and Volkmann and with a j.n.d. scale based on findings of Shower and Biddulph. The scales were not in satisfactory agreement, except in restricted cases; and the differences could not be attributed to experimental error. Any pitch scale apparently depends, in some measure, upon the group of persons who made the required judgments and upon the particular method of observation employed. A sort of “generalized scale” based on many experiments involving different groups of subjects and different methods of observation may be found to have scientific utility; but such a scale will have to be used with appropriate caution. The experiments are now being repeated with a group of sixteen trained amateur musicians participating as observers.