The Statistical Structure of Human Speech Sounds Predicts Musical Universals
Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: The similarity of musical scales and consonance judgments across human populations has no generally accepted explanation. Here we present evidence that these aspects of auditory perception arise from the statistical structure of naturally occurring periodic sound stimuli. An analysis of speech sounds, the principal source of periodic sound stimuli in the human acoustical environment, shows that the probability distribution of amplitude-frequency combinations in human utterances predicts both the structure of the chromatic scale and consonance ordering. These observations suggest that what we hear is determined by the statistical relationship between acoustical stimuli and their naturally occurring sources, rather than by the physical parameters of the stimulus per se.
Source: Journal of Neuroscience
Authors: David A. Schwartz, Catherine Q. Howe, Dale Purves
Institutions: Duke University, Duke Medical Center
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Institutes of Health
OpenAlex ID: W2153862984