Revisiting timbral brightness perception
Charalampos Saitis1, Kai Siedenburg2, Christoph Reuter3

1 Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom)
2 Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany)
3 Musicological Department, University of Vienna (Austria)


Results (Study 1): MDS analysis

Brightness dimension in timbre space are not “purely” spectral. Acoustic instrument sounds exhibit an inherent correlation of spectral and temporal features

BCL HRN FLT BSN HRP VCP VLP MBA PNO TRP VLI VCE HCD VIB VCE VLI TRP FLT HRN BCL BSN VLP HRP MBA VCP PNO VIB HCD



BCL HRN FLT BSN HRP VCP VLP MBA PNO TRP VLI VCE HCD VIB VCE VLI TRP FLT HRN BCL BSN VLP HRP MBA VCP PNO VIB HCD

 

Results (Study 2):

Evidence of influence of (log) attack time on brightness perception—likely not a “pure” effect but rather due to an interaction with spectral centroid.
A similar analysis with synthetic stimuli suggests that fluctuation of spectral centroid during the onset of a sound may play a role in brightness perception.

TBS OBE AFL TBO VCX BBA WTU TUB BCL FLT BSN HRP VCP VLP MBA PNO CEL VLI HCD VIB VCE TRP GIT HRN

Mean Brightness Ratings of 36 listeners (Caclin Stimuli)

4-1-1 title= 4-1-2 title= 4-2-2 title= 4-2-1 title= 4-3-3 title= 4-4-3 title= 4-1-4 4-3-4 4-3-1 4-3-2 4-4-2 4-2-3 4-4-4 4-2-4 3-1-1 4-2-4 4-4-1 4-1-3 3-2-1 3-1-2 3-2-2 3-4-3 3-3-2 3-4-1 3-1-4 3-4-2 3-4-4 3-3-3 3-3-1 3-1-3 3-3-4 3-2-3 3-2-4 2-2-1 2-4-3 2-3-2 2-1-1 2-3-3 2-3-1 2-1-4 2-4-4 2-4-2 2-2-2 2-1-2 2-2-4 2-4-1 2-3-4 2-1-3 2-2-3 1-2-1 1-4-4 1-3-4 1-3-2 1-1-1 1-4-3 1-3-1 1-4-2 1-3-3 1-1-2 1-2-2 1-1-3 1-4-1 1-2-3 1-1-4 1-2-4

Main Results:

Brightness dimension in timbre space are not “purely” spectral.
Between sounds with very close spectral centroid values but different attack times, those with faster attacks tend to be perceived as brighter.
Source/cause categories influence general dissimilarity but not brightness dissimilarity.