music 2

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DOI 1011770305735610377592

2011 39 449 originally published online 8 November 2010Psychology of MusicZohar Eitan and Inbar Rothschild

mappingsHow music touches Musical parameters and listeners audio-tactile metaphorical

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How music touches Musical parameters and listenersrsquo audio-tactile metaphorical mappings

Zohar Eitan and Inbar RothschildSchool of Music Tel Aviv University Israel

AbstractThough the relationship of touch and sound is central to music performance and audio-tactile metaphors are pertinent to musical discourse few empirical studies have investigated systematically how musical parameters such as pitch height loudness timbre and their interactions affect auditoryndashtactile metaphorical mappings In this study 40 participants (20 musically trained) rated the appropriateness of six dichotomous tactile metaphors (sharpndashblunt smoothndashrough softndashhard lightndashheavy warmndashcold and wetndashdry) to 20 sounds varying in pitch height loudness instrumental timbre (violin vs flute) and vibrato Results (repeated measures MANOVA) suggest that tactile metaphors are strongly associated with all musical variables examined For instance higher pitches were rated as significantly sharper rougher harder colder drier and lighter than lower pitches We consider several complementary accounts of the findings psychophysical analogies between tactile and auditory sensory processing experiential analogies based on correlations between tactile and auditory qualities of sound sources in daily experience and analogies based on abstract semantic dimensions particularly potency and activity

Keywordscross-modal interaction haptic loudness metaphor music performance tactile

Background

For most performing musicians there is an immediate embodied connection between tactile and auditory qualities touch produces sound while tactile and haptic information serve together with audition and vision as feedback gauging the performed outcome (Rovan amp Hayward 2000) These intimate inter-modal relationships are often expressed in the terminol-ogy used to describe sound musical sounds are commonly referred to as lsquowarmrsquo lsquosoftrsquo lsquosharprsquo

Corresponding authorZohar Eitan School of Music Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv 69978 Israel[email zeitanposttauacil]

Psychology of Music39(4) 449ndash467

copy The Author(s) 2010Reprints and permission httpwww

sagepubcoukjournalsPermissionnavDOI 1011770305735610377592

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Article


450 Psychology of Music 39(4)

or lsquoroughrsquo mappings that seem to be applied with notable consistency that lsquostrongly suggests a connection more than associative and external between tone and tactile valuesrsquo (Gunther amp OrsquoModhrain 2003 after Mursell 1937)

Recent psychophysical and neurophysiological research indeed suggests that the relation-ships of lsquotone and tactile valuesrsquo may be deeply rooted in behavior and its related cortical pro-cesses Psychophysical studies indicate that concurrent vibro-tactile stimuli facilitate hearing (eg Schuumlrmann Caetano Hlushchuk Jousmaumlki amp Hari 2006) while auditory stimuli may change concurrent tactile perception (Guest Catmur Lloyd amp Spence 2002) Correspondingly Schroeder et al (2001) Schuumlrmann et al (2006) and Hlushchuk (2007) all demonstrate that tactile input is processed in the auditory cortex (posterior auditory belt area) Foxe at al (2002) show auditoryndashtactile interaction in the left superior temporal gyrus such that the responses to auditoryndashtactile stimulus pairs were stronger than the sum of responses to the unimodal stim-uli presented alone suggesting combined processing of the two modalities and Houmltting Roumlsler and Roumlder (2003) in an event-related potential (ERP) study demonstrate that attending to auditory stimuli affects early (50ndash170 ms) brain processing of tactile stimuli located in the same position and vice versa

Little is confidently known however about how basic auditory qualities such as pitch height loudness or timbre affect listenersrsquo audio-tactile mappings In contrast with the wealth of psy-chophysical and cognitive studies examining interactions of auditory parameters with visual or spatial dimensions such as brightness size or elevation (for reviews of recent research see Eitan amp Granot 2006 Marks 2004) few empirical studies have investigated audio-tactile map-pings directly and results are often inconclusive Walker and Smith (1984 1986) applied both adjective ratings and the Stroop paradigm to examine the interaction of low- (50 Hz) and high-pitched (5500 Hz) sinusoids with antonymous cross-modal metaphors While many visual or kinesthetic adjectives were strongly associated with pitch height tactile antonyms including roughndashsmooth coolndashwarm and hardndashsoft were weakly associated with high and low pitch Eitan and Timmers (2010) examined similar cross-modal metaphors in a musical context ask-ing participants to rate how appropriate they are to musical segments differing in pitch register Unlike Walker and Smithrsquos their results demonstrate highly significant correlations between touch-related adjective and pitch high register music was rated as lighter smoother and softer than low register music heat though was not significantly related to pitch height Recently Eitan Katz and Shen (2010) systematically manipulated (using factorial design) pitch height loudness and tempo in two musical phrases from Varesersquos Density 215 for flute solo and asked children (aged 8 and 11) and adults to rate how appropriate 15 metaphor antonyms are including smoothndashrough sharpndashround and lightndashheavy to each manipulated phrase Results indicate that higher pitch is significantly associated with roughness sharpness and lightness and increased loudness with roughness sharpness and heaviness

Several psychophysical studies with conflicting results have examined audio-tactile rough-ness perception Peeva Baird Izmirli and Blevins (2004) asked subjects to match loudness and pitch levels to a given roughness and vice versa Subjects associated louder sounds with rougher textures they also showed strong correlation between pitch and roughness though the direc-tion of the correlation (higherndashsmoother or higherndashrougher) varied among subjects Guest et al (2002) and Zampini Guest and Spence (2003) show that reducing loudness and attenuating high frequencies increases perceived tactile smoothness In contrast subjects in Jousmaumlki and Hari (1998) judged tactile smoothness to increase as loudness and frequency increased

Finally though not using actual musical or auditory stimuli results of Osgoodrsquos well-known Semantic Differential experiments may be particularly relevant to the issue of tactile-auditory


Eitan and Rothschild 451

metaphorical mapping In the Semantic Differential (SD) technique (Osgood Suci amp Tannenbaum 1957) diverse objects (eg my mother snow death United Nations) are rated on a large number of bipolar adjective scales (eg goodndashbad fastndashslow hardndashsoft) Typically factor analysis on the different adjective ratings reduces into three main independent factors interpreted as evaluation (eg goodndashbad pleasantndashunpleasant) activity (eg fastndashslow activendashpassive) and potency or power (eg strongndashweak bigndashsmall) These three factors have emerged in different experimental paradigms performed cross-linguistically and cross-culturally

The 50 adjective scales used by Osgood in many early SD experiments include the antonyms loudndashsoft and bassndashtreble denoting the poles of pitch height and loudness In addition several tactile antonyms are used including hardndashsoft heavyndashlight roughndashsmooth sharpndashblunt hotndashcold and wetndashdry Notably for American English speakers (Osgood et al 1957 Table 1) both auditory antonyms loudndashsoft (44) and bassndashtreble (47) feature relatively high loadings into the potency factor So do several of the tactile antonyms the tactile dimension heavyndashlight presents the highest loading of all adjective pairs constituting the potency factor (62) while hardndashsoft (55) and roughndashsmooth (36) are also loaded highly into this factor Later analysis (Osgood 1964) suggests that sharpndashdull (45) and hotndashcold (47) are also strongly associated with potency (though they also relate to activity) Thus the tactile qualities of heavy hard rough sharp and hot and the auditory qualities low (for pitch) and loud are all associated with qualities denoting high potency and power This semantic association of tactile and auditory qualities should be noted ndash and we will look at it again when interpreting our own results

PredictionsWhat do the existing empirical data suggest regarding audio-tactile metaphorical mappings Table 1 summarizes the tactile mappings of pitch height and loudness as suggested by the stud-ies surveyed above As the table indicates only few of the predictions are unequivocal louder sound is sharper heavier harder and warmer while higher pitch is lighter Furthermore of these correlations two (loudrarrwarm and loudrarrhard) are not based on studies involving actual auditory or tactile stimuli but are implied indirectly from semantic differential data (see above) Predictions concerning other audio-tactile relationships are contradictory or simply missing Louder and higher sounds were associated in different studies with both poles of the smoothndashrough dimension and higher pitch was likewise associated with both lsquosharprsquo and lsquodullrsquo Mappings of pitch into the softndashhard and hotndashcold dimensions are indicated by some studies

Table 1 Summary of audio-tactile mappings as suggested by Eitan amp Timmers 2010 (E amp T) Guest et al 2002 (G) Jousmaumlki amp Hari 1998 (J amp H) Eitan et al 2010 (E K amp S) Osgood 1964 (O) Osgood et al 1957 Peeva et al 2004 (P) Walker amp Smith 1984 (W amp S) Zampini et al 2003 (Z)

Louder volume Higher pitch

SoftndashHard Hard (O) Soft (E amp T O) None (W amp S)SmoothndashRough Smooth (J amp H) Rough

(E K amp S P G Z O) Smooth (E amp T Z G O) Rough (E K amp S J amp H) None (W amp S)

SharpndashDull Sharp (E K amp S O) Sharp (E K amp S) Dull (O)HeavyndashLight Heavy (E K amp S O) Light (E amp T O)WarmndashCold Warm (O) Cold (O) None (W amp S)WetndashDry



but others do not suggest any significant correlations between these dimensions and no study known to us has examined how pitch and loudness map into the wetndashdry dichotomy As to other musical variables such as vibrato and specific instrumental timbre ndash both investigated in this study ndash as far as we know only anecdotal evidence (eg expressions such as lsquowarm vibratorsquo or lsquosmooth flute soundrsquo sometimes uttered by musicians) can serve as a basis for predictions

Aims and general designThis study systematically investigates how loudness pitch height instrumental timbre (flute vs violin) vibrato and their interactions affect listenersrsquo application of tactile metaphors for musical sound As shown above the small body of empirical research addressing comparable issues is inconclusive with regard to some audio-tactile interactions while others were never examined empirically Several critical gaps in this literature thus need to be addressed First the effects of musical or auditory variables except pitch on audio-tactile associations have hardly been examined Second no study has systematically examined how interactions of different auditory parameters affect the tactile associations of sound Lastly previous studies did not examine listenersrsquo tactile mapping of musical sound per se independent variables were either verbal only (Eitan amp Timmers 2010 Experiment 1 Osgood et al 1957) sinusoids (Walker amp Smith 1984) noise (Peeva et al 2004) or on the other hand entire musical complexes (Eitan amp Timmers 2010 Experiment 3 Eitan et al 2010) The present study thus provides a neces-sary intermediate level in the range of converging experiments examining audio-tactile map-pings It bridges the gap between experiments using controlled artificial auditory stimuli with no similarity to actual musical sound and experiments applying actual music (which necessar-ily involves many uncontrolled musical variables) by using lsquonaturalrsquo sound of musical instru-ments played by professional performers while controlling musical variables Comparing our results with those of experiments using other stimuli ndash artificial or ecological ndash may provide a fuller picture of audio-tactile mappings in musical contexts

As independent variables we have chosen four musical features the basic auditory parameters of pitch height and loudness instrumental timbre as represented by two instru-ments (violin and flute) similar in their pitch range but contrasting in timbre (the violinrsquos harmonics-rich sound contrasts with the flutersquos which particularly at its higher register approaches pure tone) and vibrato an important tool in musiciansrsquo (particularly string playersrsquo) expressive manipulation of sound As dependent variables we use ratings for six tactile antonyms sharpndashblunt smoothndashrough softndashhard lightndashheavy warmndashcold1 and wetndashdry These terms are commonly used to describe sound in music and elsewhere lsquoSharp shrillrsquo lsquorough hoarse voicersquo lsquoa blunt thudrsquo or lsquoa still and soft voicersquo (Kings I 19 King James translation) are but a tiny sample of the expressions applying such audio-tactile mappings Google for instance (accessed 29 September 2009) lists about 253000 instances of the term lsquosoft soundrsquo or lsquosoft soundsrsquo 205800 of lsquowarm soundsoundsrsquo 183200 lsquoheavy soundsoundsrsquo 159300 lsquorough soundsoundsrsquo 92300 lsquosharp soundsoundsrsquo and 91500 lsquodry soundsoundsrsquo Furthermore as the above survey indicates these tactile terms have been used in most relevant research their employment here may thus enable comparison with that research

The present study examines then how several musical variables and their interactions affect the application of common tactile metaphors for sound while using actual musical sounds systematically manipulated The study employs 18 sound stimuli comprising all com-binations of three pitch registers three loudness levels and two instrumental timbres (violin



and flute) Two additional sounds introduced vibrato using medium pitch and loudness levels Participants (musicians and non-musicians) rated each sound on six bipolar adjective scales sharpndashblunt smoothndashrough softndashhard lightndashheavy warmndashcold and wetndashdry Using repeated measures MANOVAs we examined how the musical variables related to each of the six adjec-tive ratings

MethodParticipants

Forty participants 21 women 19 men mean age 2885 range 18ndash60 SD = 1077 20 par-ticipants were musically trained (undergraduate or graduate music students and music pro-fessionals with gt4 years of formal musical studies 152 years of musical training or professional musical activity on average) while the remaining 20 had little or no formal musical training (11 years of musical training on average) The musiciansrsquo group was on average younger than the non-musiciansrsquo (mean age 25 vs 327) Participants were paid for their services

Sound stimuliTwenty 4-second sounds each consisting of a single tone with constant loudness were played by a professional violinist and a professional flute player (10 sounds each) and recorded through a single Schoephs CMC5-U condenser microphone to a CD Eighteen sounds played without vibrato created a 3 times 3 times 2 matrix containing all combinations of two instrumental timbres (flute and violin) three pitches (A4 A5 A6) and three distinct loudness levels two additional sounds (A5 medium loudness) were played with vibrato by the two instruments Sound editing (using Wavelab 51) included equalizing the duration of all sounds to 4 minutes introducing onset and decay gradations (lt200 ms) and equalization of each of the three loud-ness levels across pitch and instrument based on evaluations of four expert musicians The peak amplitudes of all sounds used (in dB-SPL) are presented in Table 22

ProcedureParticipants were tested individually in a quiet room using David Clark 10SDC sound-isolating earphones They listened to each sound two to three times as needed with intervals of approxi-mately 10 seconds between reiterations and 30 seconds between different sounds A break of 2 minutes was introduced in mid-session Twenty different quasi-randomized orderings of the stimuli were used each starting with a different tone

Participants rated each sound on six bi-polar 5-degree scales sharpndashblunt smoothndashrough softndashhard lightndashheavy warmndashcold and wetndashdry Scales were presented as horizontal lines between each two dichotomous adjectives divided by five short vertical lines (eg Wet |____|____|____|____| Dry) Participants circled one of the vertical lines to indicate which antonym was more appropriate as a metaphor for the sound and to what degree ratings were converted into numerical scales (1ndash5) The order of antonyms within each pair (rightleft of the scale) was counterbalanced among participants and the order of the six pairs was quasi-randomized such that for each six or seven participants a different adjective pair appeared first on the form Orderings were kept constant for each participant



At a sessionrsquos end participants were requested to freely comment on their rating criteria the relative difficulty of the categories and any other issue concerning the experiment They were also asked to select of the 12 adjectives the three most appropriate metaphors for musical sound Participants provided demographic information including age gender musical instru-ments played years of musical training and current musical occupation (if any)

ResultsThe effects of musical variables on ratings of tactile metaphors

Statistical analysis Since the dependent variables have shown considerable co-variation (see lsquoCorrelations between adjective pairsrsquo below) Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted (Wilksrsquo Lambda) Multivariate tests of significance were first conducted on the entire data set (excluding vibrato stimuli) showing highly significant main effects (p lt 00001) for Instrument (F = 927) Pitch (F = 2526) and Loudness (F = 1339) and a significant Loudness times Instrument interaction (F = 228 p lt 05) a similar analysis was conducted for the four stimuli used in examining vibrato effects showing a significant effect of Vibrato (F = 611 p lt 005) and a significant VibratondashInstrument interaction (F = 345 p lt 01) These analyses were followed by separate multivariate tests for repeated measure for each of the six dependent variables (adjective pairsrsquo ratings) For each adjective pair a repeated measures MANOVA was conducted for ratings of the 18-sound non-vibrato matrix with Loudness (pp mf or ff) Pitch (A4 A5 or A6) and Instrument (violin or piano) as within-subject independent variables Musical Training as a between-subject independent variable and adjective ratings (1ndash5) as the dependent variable Results for the two vibrato sounds were compared only to non-vibrato sounds with the same Loudness (mf) and Pitch (A5) levels in repeated-measures MANOVAs with Vibrato and Instrument as within-subject independent variables

Table 2 Peak amplitudes of all stimuli (dB-SPL)

Instrument Dynamics Pitch Vibrato dB-SPL

Violin pp A4 N 631Violin pp A5 N 591Violin pp A6 N 622Violin mf A4 N 702Violin mf A5 N 725Violin mf A6 N 698Violin ff A4 N 795Violin ff A5 N 798Violin ff A6 N 81Violin mf A5 Y 778Flute pp A4 N 665Flute pp A5 N 725Flute pp A6 N 696Flute mf A4 N 762Flute mf A5 N 78Flute mf A6 N 82Flute ff A4 N 835Flute ff A5 N 838Flute ff A6 N 90Flute mf A5 Y 845



Results are presented in Table 3 which summarizes MANOVA results and in the box-plots of Figure 1 depicting the distributions of adjective ratings as related to the musical variables of Loudness Pitch Height Instrument and Vibrato

Table 3 Significant effects of musical and population variables on ratings for tactile metaphors (repeated measures MANOVAndashWilks test)

Tactile Metaphor Musical variable

F value p M (SE) M (SE) M (SE)

SharpndashBlunt Instrument 1313 00008 284 (013) 247 (014)Pitch 8172 00000 353 (014) 247 (015) 197 (015)Loudness 2069 00000 305 (017) 267 (016) 226 (016)

SmoothndashRough Instrument 4724 00000 285 (013) 350 (012)Pitch 578 00065 297 (015) 315 (015) 34 (016)Loudness 3567 00000 277 (015) 311 (014) 365 (015)InstrumentndashLoudness

64 0004

PitchndashLoudness 389 00102InstrumentndashVibrato

569 00221

InstrumentndashTraining

689 00124

SoftndashHard Instrument 1407 00005 282 (014) 326 (013)Pitch 3851 00000 252 (016) 312 (016) 349 (016)Loudness 7503 00000 226 (014) 301 (015) 385 (014)InstrumentndashLoudness

41 00246


506 00302

LoudnessndashTraining

331 00474

LightndashHeavy Pitch 188 00000 327 (015) 275 (014) 252 (014)Loudness 266 00000 230 (014) 283 (013) 341 (015)Vibrato 578 00211 27 (024) 306 (025)InstrumentndashPitchndashLoudness

604 00008

WarmndashCold Instrument 982 00033 308 (013) 339 (013)Pitch 3554 00000 260 (015) 332 (014) 379 (015)Loudness 1874 00000 292 (015) 324 (015) 355 (016)Vibrato 1259 00012 265 (023) 334 (027)InstrumentndashVibrato

683 00128

WetndashDry Instrument 238 00000 309 (012) 350 (012)Pitch 48 0014 305 (014) 326 (14) 358 (015)Vibrato 2575 00000 246 (024) 33 (023)InstrumentndashPitch

47 0015

InstrumentndashVibrato

1132 00017

Ratings were translated to numerical values of 1ndash5 Left antonym 1 Right antonym 5

N Pitch 240 Loudness 240 Instrument 360 Vibrato 80M (SE) Pitch A4 Loudness pp Instrument Flute Vibrato +M (SE) Pitch A5 Loudness mf Instrument Violin Vibrato -M (SE) Pitch A6 Loudness ff



Mean 95 Confidence Interval Median Quartile

SharpndashBlunt (1ndash5) box plots for instrument pitch and loudness

SmoothndashRough (1ndash5) box plots for instrument pitch and loudness

SoftndashHard (1ndash5) box plots for instrument pitch and loudness

LightndashHeavy (1ndash5) box plots for pitch loudness and vibrato

WarmndashCold (1ndash5) box plots for instrument pitch loudness and vibrato

WetndashDry (1ndash5) box plots for instrument pitch and vibrato

Figure 1 Distributions of adjective ratings as related to the musical variables of Loudness Pitch Instrument and Vibrato



Results indicate significant main effects for all four musical variables (Pitch Loudness Instrument and Vibrato) and some significant interactions among variables

bull Highly significant main effects of pitch height for all six adjective pairs Higher pitches were rated as sharper rougher harder lighter colder and drier than lower pitches

bull Highly significant main effects of loudness for five adjective pairs Louder sounds were rated as sharper rougher harder heavier and colder than quieter sounds Note that results for louder dynamics and higher pitch are parallel in all but one measure higher pitch is more lightweight but louder sound is heavier

bull Significant main effects of instrument violin sound was rated as blunter (less sharp) rougher harder colder and drier as compared to flute Instrument did not affect lightndashheavy ratings

bull Significant main effects of vibrato vibrato sounds were rated as lighter warmer and wet-ter than non-vibrato sounds Vibrato did not affect sharpndashblunt and softndashhard ratings

Several significant interactions between musical dimensions were found Most of these interac-tions involve the Instrument variable (flute or violin) suggesting that the effects of the other musi-cal variables examined (Pitch Loudness and Vibrato) on the application of tactile metaphor may vary for different musical instruments Note however that significant interactions are limited to few metaphors particularly smoothndashrough and softndashhard moreover only one interaction (InstrumentndashVibrato for smoothndashrough) presents opposite effects of the two interacting variables In all other interactions only the magnitude of the effect rather than its direction is involved

bull Significant interactions between Instrument and Loudness were found for the smoothndashrough antonym (F = 64 p = 004) where rating differences between instruments were larger at lower dynamic levels and for softndashhard where rating differences were larger at higher dynamic levels (F = 41 p = 025)

bull A significant interaction between Instrument and Pitch was found for the wetndashdry antonym only For the flute rating differences occurred between the two higher pitch registers while for the violin they occurred mainly between the two lower registers (F = 47 p = 015)

bull Significant interactions between Instrument and Vibrato were found for the warmndashcold (F = 683 p = 012) and wetndashdry (F = 113 p = 0017) antonyms in which rating differ-ences between vibrato and non-vibrato were considerably larger for the violin and for the smoothndashrough antonym in which vibrato was rated as smoother than non-vibrato for the violin while for the flute it was rated as rougher (F = 527 p = 022)

bull A significant interaction between Pitch Height and Loudness was found for the smoothndashrough antonym only (F = 389 p = 001) While for low and medium dynamic levels (pp mf) middle register pitch was rougher than low-register pitch this was not the case for the loudest dynamics (ff)

The effect of musical training No main effect was found for Musical Training However Musical Training interacted with Instrument for the smoothndashrough (F = 689 p = 012) and softndashhard (F = 506 p = 03) dichotomies and with loudness for softndashhard (F = 331 p = 047) such that differences between ratings for the two instruments as well as for loudness values were larger for the musically trained participants In addition a significant three-way interaction between Instrument Vibrato and Musical Training emerged for sharpndashblunt ratings (F = 482 p = 034) such that musicians associated reduced sharpness with violin non-vibrato while non-musicians associated reduced sharpness with flute non-vibrato



Preferred adjectives and easydifficult categories In their free verbal responses participants noted among other things which of the antonym pairs were the easiest and which were the most difficult to rate In addition they were asked to choose out of the 12 adjectives presented up to three that they believe are most suitable as metaphors for sound Table 4 quantifies these responses As these responses were adapted from freely composed comments and are limited in number we do no analyze them statistically Nevertheless data indicate that the easiest pair to apply as a metaphor to sound was by far softndashhard while the most difficult pair was wetndashdry Most participants considered lsquowarmrsquo and lsquosoftrsquo highly suitable metaphors for sound while lsquowetrsquo lsquodryrsquo lsquobluntrsquo and lsquocoldrsquo were considered suitable by very few participants Note the strong preference toward one of the two terms in some pairs warm rather than cold heavy rather than light sharp rather than blunt

Correlations between adjective pairs To examine whether different tactile metaphors for sound tend to associate with each other we computed Pearson correlation coefficients based on the entire data set between all adjective pairs (Table 5) Several significant correlations (p lt 05) can be observed most involving the pair softndashhard (which as mentioned above was also con-sidered the tactile dimension easiest to apply to sound) Softndashhard correlates positively with warmndashcold and lightndashheavy and negatively with sharpndashblunt Soft then tends to associate with warm lightweight and blunt while hard associates with cold heavy and sharp In addi-tion smoothndashrough correlates positively with wetndashdry and (marginally) with lightndashheavy and sharpndashblunt presents a marginal negative correlation with warmndashcold

DiscussionThis study indicates that tactile metaphors applied to sound are systematically affected by musi-cal factors particularly pitch height and loudness and suggests specific relationships between

Table 4 Preferred adjectives and easydifficult categories

Category SharpndashBlunt SmoothndashRough SoftndashHard LightndashHeavy WarmndashCold WetndashDry

Easy 6 8 15 3 8 3Difficult 3 8 2 9 7 18Preferred 15 3 8 7 25 11 8 17 30 4 3 1

Table 5 Pearson correlation coefficients between adjectives pairs based on the entire data set

SharpndashBlunt SmoothndashRough LightndashHeavy HotndashCold WetndashDry

SoftndashHard -034 021 042 051 005SharpndashBlunt 020 008 -030() -017SmoothndashRough 027() 023 039LightndashHeavy 003 021WarmndashCold 0002

() p lt 1 p lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001



the two modes Only few of the cross-modal interactions investigated here have been empiri-cally studied before and fewer were examined using actual musical sound Thus for instance highly significant associations rarely studied before were established between loudness and the dimensions of softness smoothness weight heat and wetness

In the following we shall briefly discuss several central issues stemming from the results These include the correspondence between pitch height and loudness as revealed by their shared tactile metaphors as well as several complementary accounts of tactile mappings for sound Finally the issue of ecological validity will be addressed We shall discuss supporting evidence suggesting that results of this study ndash its rarified experimental settings notwithstand-ing ndash are musically relevant and briefly suggest how further studies may examine the present results in the context of musical performance

Pitch and loudness similarities and an important contrastImportantly the effects of pitch and loudness on tactile metaphors are similar for all dimen-sions but one as higher pitch and louder sound were both rated as sharper rougher harder and colder This congruence is consistent with studies indicating perceptual correlation of rising and falling pitch with increasing and decreasing loudness respectively (Nakamura 1987 Neuhoff amp McBeath 1996 Neuhoff McBeath amp Wanzie 1999) Comparably studies of music-induced imagery (Eitan amp Granot 2006 Eitan amp Tubul in press) and of perceptual congru-ence effects (Eitan Schupak amp Marks 2008) suggest that rise and fall in loudness and pitch convey similar spatio-temporal associations (eg diminuendo strongly suggests spatial fall like lsquofallrsquo in pitch) Together with these earlier studies our results thus point at intriguing similari-ties concerning the web of cross- and a-modal associations these two basic dimensions of sound convey to listeners similarities that may deeply affect musical experience

Note however that amid these similarities stands one important contrast increased loud-ness is lsquoheavyrsquo while high pitch is lsquolightrsquo Similar pitchndashloudness contrasts were observed for the related dimension of size high pitch is associated with small physical size (Marks Hammeal Bornstein amp Smith 1988 Walker amp Smith 1984) but high loudness ndash lsquovolumersquo ndash is indeed voluminous (Lipscomb amp Kim 2004 Stevens 1934 Walker 1987) In decoding what sound may convey to listeners these contrasts in lsquopotencyrsquo (Osgood et al 1957) standing amid strik-ing similarities in other domains should be an important consideration

Possible sources of audio-tactile mappingsGiven our rudimentary understanding of auditoryndashtactile interaction any explanation of the specific sound-touch associations presented here would be speculative Nevertheless several complementary accounts may be tentatively pointed out

Tactile sensations of the ear Do cross-modal metaphors reflect analogous sensory processing The senses of touch and hearing correspond in some fundamental ways (Soto-Faraco amp Deco 2009) Both are based on receptors that respond to pressure stimuli transferring them (con-verted into electrochemical stimuli) through the nerves to the brain for processing and both process vibrations analyzing (albeit with very different subtlety) amplitude frequency and waveform within perceptual ranges and just noticeable differences (JNDs) that are often roughly compatible For instance the vibrotactile frequency response range is approximately 20ndash1000 Hz and the vibrotactile intensity response ranges about 55 dB from the lower



threshold (Gunther amp OrsquoModhrain 2003) Sometimes as when exploring surface texture with a probe the very same vibrations reach both skin and ear (see Lederman Klatzki Morgan amp Hamilton 2002) Such analogies in sensory processing may give rise at higher processing levels to perceptual and verbal correlations Some audio-tactile mappings exhibited in the present study may demonstrate such correlations illustrated by the sound images in Figure 2

Lightndashheavy softndashhard Louder sounds generate greater pressure on our hearing receptors just as heavier and harder objects activate greater pressure on pressure receptors in the skin Hence sound waves with higher amplitudes are perceived as heavy and hard (Compare images 9 and 10 (pp) with images 11 and 12 (ff) in Figure 2)

Smoothndashrough In vibrotactile perception the contrast between purer and richer waveforms is represented as smoothness vs roughness (Rovan amp Hayward 2000) Comparably a flutersquos simpler sound wave (Figure 2 image 1) was rated as smoother than the violinrsquos (Figure 2 image 2) louder sounds (Figure 2 images 11 and 12) possessing higher amplitudes and richer in audible partials were rated as rougher than quieter sounds (Figure 2 images 9 and 10) Higher pitch however (Figure 2 images 7 and 8) was rated as rougher than lower pitch (Figure 2 images 5 and 6) in apparent variance with the above hypothesis Possibly another factor the shorter lsquospikierrsquo wave lengths of higher pitch may have created the audio-tactile analogy here

Sharpndashblunt Violin sound (Figure 2 image 2) higher pitch (Figure 2 images 7 and 8) and louder tone (Figure 2 images 11 and 12) were rated as lsquosharperrsquo These correlations are con-sistent with an accepted psycho-acoustic definition of sharpness (Bismarck 1974) as they all increase spectral energy in higher frequency regions However the relationships also apply to a more general definition of a waversquos lsquosharpnessrsquo sharpness rises as steepness rises ndash as the ampli-tude grows and the wave length shortens

Obviously such account of sensory correspondence should be qualified To support the hypothesis that cross-modal metaphorical mapping performed verbally at a high cognitive level is associated with correlations in low-level sensory processing the path from such basic sensory processes mostly subconscious to high-level cognitive operations should be accounted for In particular one should specify whether such path begins with low-level interaction based on neural encoding of sensory correspondence (see Foxe et al 2000 Houmltting at al 2003 for relevant studies of early brain potentials) Alternatively stimuli in different modalities may be separately processed at lower levels and then mapped through higher-level language-related processes into cross-domain concepts such as lightness or softness (see Martino amp Marx 1999 2001 for a relevant model) To examine these alternatives converging or combined studies using implicit perceptual measures such as response time in cross-modal tasks physiological measures and brain imaging techniques (fMRI and ERP) may be conducted

Audio-tactile mappings and experiential congruence Regardless of low-level analogies of sensory processing we may learn to relate certain tactile and auditory properties because these are often encountered together associated with the same objects in daily experience Thus for instance subjects associate louder impact sound with larger and heavier objects (Burro amp Grassi 2001) Overall higher loudness as well as higher loudness of the spectral centroid are also associated with harder objects or surfaces (Freed 1990 Giordano 2005) Higher loudness (Guest et al 2002 Lederman 1979) and higher frequency (Zampini et al 2003) are both associated with roughness



Figure 2 Sound images of selected stimuli



Such repeated cross-modal associations may impart in structural invariants that are perceived as indicators of the source objectrsquos attributes such as softness dryness or roughness Ecological psychology has suggested that an organism directly perceives complex visual (Gibson 1966) or auditory (Gaver 1993a 1993b) invariant structures that specify source objects their properties and actions The relationships observed by participants in the present study may take part in constituting auditory invariants (variants also involving other acoustic features such as amplitude envelope and spectral structure) that specify to the listener basic tactile (indeed cross-modal) features of the source object Note that these invariants specify objects and their features through events or actions performed upon them rather than by pas-sive perception alone sound specifying lsquosoftrsquo vs lsquohardrsquo is the sound related to acting upon (eg hitting) a soft or hard object (Gaver 1993a 1993b)

Structural cross-modal invariants may induce the habitual use of verbal cross-modal map-pings and the metaphors resulting from such mappings may themselves become the principal means of describing the auditory target dimension (eg lsquosoftrsquo as used for reduced loudness) Such prevalent verbal use in turn reinforces cross-modal association2

One way to examine the effect of experiential correspondences on auditoryndashtactile map-pings would be developmental studies involving infants and young children as compared to older children and adults Developmental investigations of other cross-modal interactions have suggested different developmental tracks for different cross-modal mappings For instance associations of pitch and loudness with brightness are traced in infancy or early childhood while the associations of pitch and loudness with size mature only in late childhood (age 9ndash11) suggesting that they are largely determined by childrenrsquos exposure to cross-modal correlations in daily experience (Lewkowicz amp Turkewitz 1980 Marks et al 1988 Smith amp Sera 1992) Similar studies involving auditoryndashtactile interactions may distinguish between interactions based upon repeated exposure to audio-tactile correlations and those whose sources lie elsewhere

Underlying semantic dimensions As suggested by Osgoodrsquos findings (Osgood 1964 Osgood et al 1957 see above) associations of auditory and tactile features as well as correlations among the tactile features themselves may be related to abstract semantic dimensions such as activity or potency Thus it might have been claimed that some of our findings may not primarily stem from the presentation of actual auditory stimuli but from an a-modal semantic space relating auditory and tactile adjectives through their shared connotations to abstract dimensions such as high (or low) power activity or evaluation Specifically as mentioned adjectives denoting the poles of pitch and loudness (bassndashtreble loudndashsoft) as well as five of the six antonyms used in the present study loaded highly into the potency factor (Osgood 1964 Osgood et al 1957) such that low and loud sound as well as the tactile features hard rough heavy sharp and hot were all high in potency One may then expect that these features would correlate all being lsquopotentrsquo or lsquopowerfulrsquo

Our results however indicate that abstract semantic dimensions such as potency explain audio-tactile mappings only partially if at all nor do they account very well for correlations among tactile features Indeed some correlations between tactile dimensions predicted by Osgoodrsquos potency scores are presented in our results (Table 5) hard is positively correlated with heavy and rough and heavy are also marginally correlated However other correlations implied by Osgoodrsquos data are reversed or absent Warm is not correlated with hard sharp rough and heavy as would be predicted by shared high potency Rather it correlates with soft and blunt



and shows no significant correlations with the heavyndashlight and smoothndashrough dichotomies Likewise sharp is correlated with cold rather than warm as implied by Osgoodrsquos data and is not associated with rough or heavy

Rather than based upon abstract semantic dimensions some of the correlations between tactile features may be modality specific related to concrete tactile experience Chen Shao Barnes Childs and Henson (2009) asked participants to rate various surfaces on bi-polar scales for warmndashcold slipperyndashsticky smoothndashrough hardndashsoft bumpyndashflat and wetndashdry They found high correlations between ratings for warmndashcold and softndashhard (74) and between smoothndashrough and wetndashdry (65) correlations also found in the present study Neither correla-tion is predicted by Osgoodrsquos data

Comparing audio-tactile mappings (Table 3) with those implied by Osgoodrsquos potency load-ings indicates that high loudness indeed associates significantly with most tactile features high in potency ndash hard rough heavy and sharp ndash though louder sound is cold rather than warm The tactile mappings of loudness may thus stem in part from an abstract potency (power) dimension underlying both loudness and its tactile correlates Indeed such mappings make ecological sense since louder sound is associated with potency (ie with larger more massive sounding bodies capable of powerful actions or effects) In contrast low pitch (also associated with high potency) is rated as soft smooth and dull rather than as hard rough and sharp attributes loaded highly into potency Thus while the audio-tactile mappings of loudness may largely stem from its potency connotations those of pitch height lie elsewhere

Still audio-tactile mappings may indeed relate to dimensions such as evaluation activity or potency but these may derive from the participantsrsquo experience of the actual auditory stimuli presented to them rather than from abstract pre-conceived semantic relationships Thus for instance in their free verbal responses participants often noted that some sounds were more pleasant than others and related this evaluation to the tactile qualities those sounds meta-phorically possessed Generally pleasant sounds were described as warm soft lightweight blunt and smooth while unpleasant sounds were cold hard heavy sharp and rough (notably these evaluations only partially concur with Osgoodrsquos valence loadings ndash they do for the dimen-sions softndashhard smoothndashrough and lightndashheavy but not for warmndashcold and sharpndashblunt) As noted these terms also correlated with each other (Table 5) In addition the terms lsquosoftrsquo and lsquowarmrsquo were favored by most participants as metaphors for music and sounds (Table 4) These converging results suggest that an evaluation dimension contrasting lsquopleasantrsquo sounds (described as soft smooth warm lightweight and blunt with lsquounpleasantrsquo ones ndash hard rough cold heavy and sharp) may have underscored specific tactile metaphors for sound Yet the source of this dimension is not in an abstract semantic space but actual affective experience involving concrete sound

Ecological validity Relevance to music listening and performanceThis is an exploratory study By necessity it examined a limited set of pitch and loudness levels and only two instrumental timbres Furthermore to manage and control our auditory varia-bles we restricted our stimuli to single sounds Even a short simple melodic phrase would fea-ture a host of additional variables ndash pitch contour interval size articulation and a variety of tonal and rhythmic features ndash that may affect the use of tactile metaphors and interact in com-plex non-additive ways with the variables of pitch register loudness instrumental timbre and vibrato examined here



Would the audio-tactile mappings observed here then be featured in a musical context Two recent studies by our group may help examining this crucial issue In Eitan and Timmers (2010 Experiment 3) participants heard two segments from the variation movement of Beethovenrsquos piano sonata op 111 differing in pitch register but otherwise similar and rated each segment on 35 bi-polar scales including five of the six tactile antonyms used in the pres-ent study Four of these antonyms were rated similarly in both studies hard light and sharp were all associated significantly with high pitch in both studies cold was significantly associ-ated with high pitch in the present study and marginally so (p lt 1) in Eitan and Timmersrsquo (2010) experiment The smoothndashrough antonym however was rated in opposite ways in the present study high pitch is rougher while in Eitan and Timmers low pitch is rougher Notably Eitan and Timmers used a very different instrumental timbre (piano) and a wider pitch range than that used in our study which might have affected roughness ratings more than other rat-ings This notwithstanding the similarity of most audio-tactile mappings in ratings of single violin and flute sounds and in those of complex piano music suggests that results of this study its impoverished stimuli notwithstanding may largely apply to actual musical contexts

Further corroboration of the present studyrsquos ecological validity comes from Eitan et al (2010) In that study pitch loudness and tempo were manipulated factorially in two phrases from a 20th-century flute solo piece (Varese Density 215) For each musical stimulus partici-pants (children aged 8 and 11 and adults) rated among other adjectives the tactile antonyms softndashhard smoothndashrough and sharp-round also examined here As in the present study music higher in pitch or louder was rated as harder sharper and rougher than music lower in pitch or of reduced loudness Again then our results correspond well with those obtained from lsquorealrsquo music suggesting that their ecological validity is high

How can one further examine the musical relevance of tactile metaphors The present article concentrated on the listening end of the musical communication chain Yet tactile metaphors as noted in the beginning of this article seem to be as important for performers serving to communicate sound quality and performance expression Further studies of the use of touch metaphors in music should then address more closely aspects of musical sound that are primarily within the realm of expressive performance such as articulation (eg staccato vs legato) or within-instrument timbre (eg sul ponticello vs sul tasto in string instruments) Furthermore to investigate how musicians interpret tactile metaphors in performance a paradigm complementary to that used here may be applied performers would be instructed to play sounds possessing a specified lsquotactilersquo quality (eg lsquowarmrsquo lsquosoftrsquo or lsquoroughrsquo sound) or perform the same melodic line in several different expressions described by tactile metaphors The results of these different performances would then be analyzed acoustically examining how qualities such as sound envelope and spectral composition are related to the soundrsquos tactile descriptions A qualitative investigation of the role of tactile metaphors in performersrsquo training and communication may importantly supplement such quantitative approaches in enhancing our understanding of the actual musical functions of tactile metaphors

CodaDiffering accounts of their sources notwithstanding our results indicate that tactile meta-phors for musical sound are neither coincidental nor subjective but relate systematically to basic qualities of sound Our findings add to the accumulated evidence suggesting that a rich yet consistently applied array of cross-modal connotations underlies the perception



of auditory stimuli and musical sound specifically The consistency of such cross-modal associations suggests that an account of music cognition in purely auditory terms may be insufficient aspects of the experienced lsquomeaningrsquo of sound may inhere in the web of cross-modal connotations it imparts To the practising musician (performer and composer) such insights may both validate and enrich the palette of expressive nuances To the researcher they call for further studies concerning the manifold ways musical and auditory attributes touch us

Acknowledgments

We thank Itzkhak Mizrakhi for his assistance in stimuli preparation and Alex Gotler and Tal Galili for assistance in statistical analysis

Notes

1 Note that the Hebrew word used Kham may denote both lsquowarmrsquo and lsquohotrsquo2 Since equal loudness curves in use (eg FletcherndashMunson ISO226 2203) were determined using

pure tones or noise they are hardly appropriate to harmonic tones particularly across different musical instruments Determining equal loudness levels individually for each participant (the optimal option) was unfortunately not a practical alternative Hence loudness adjustment was based on independent judgments of four expert musicians including the two players a concert pianist (the second author) and a composerrecording engineer Notably after equal loudness adjustment violin sounds were on average 7 dB-SPL softer than comparable flute sounds

3 Indeed linguistic stimuli may create cross-modal congruence effects as strongly as the actual sensory stimuli they represent (Martino amp Marks 1999 Walker amp Smith 1984 1986)

References

Bismarck G von (1974) Timbre of steady sounds A factorial investigation of its verbal attributes Acustica 30 146ndash159

Burro R amp Grassi M (2001) Experiments on size and height of falling objects Phenomenology of Sounds Events Sounding Object Group Report 4 31ndash39

Chen X Shao F Barnes C Childs T amp Henson B (2009) Exploring relationships between touch per-ception and surface physical properties International Journal of Design 3(2) 67ndash77

Eitan Z amp Granot R Y (2006) How music moves Musical parameters and images of motion Music Perception 23(3) 221ndash247

Eitan Z Katz A amp Shen Y (2010 August) Effects of pitch register loudness and tempo on childrenrsquos metaphors for music Poster presented at the 11th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC11) Seattle WA

Eitan Z Schupak A amp Marks L E (2008) Louder is higher Cross-modal interaction of loudness change and vertical motion in speeded classification In K Miyazaki Y Hiraga M Adachi Y Nakajima amp M Tsuzaki (Eds) Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Music Perception amp Cognition (ICMPC10) (pp 67ndash76) Sapporo Japan ICMPC10

Eitan Z amp Timmers R (2010) Beethovenrsquos last piano sonata and those who follow crocodiles Cross-domain mappings of auditory pitch in a musical context Cognition 114 (3) 405ndash422

Eitan Z amp Tubul N (in press) Musical parameters and childrenrsquos images of motion Musicae Scientiae

Foxe J J Morocz I A Murray M M Higgins B A Javitt D C amp Schroeder C E (2000) Multisensory auditory-somatosensory interactions in early cortical processing revealed by high-density electrical mapping Cognitive Brain Research 10(1) 77ndash83



Foxe J J Wylie G R Martinez A Schroeder C E Javitt D C Guilfoyle D et al (2002) Auditory-somatosensory multisensory processing in auditory association cortex An fMRI study Journal of Neurophysiology 88(1) 540ndash543

Freed D J (1990) Auditory correlates of perceived mallet hardness for a set of recorded percussive events Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 87(1) 311ndash322

Gaver W W (1993a) What in the world do we hear An ecological approach to auditory event percep-tion Ecological Psychology 5(1) 1ndash29

Gaver W W (1993b) How do we hear in the world Explorations of ecological acoustics Ecological Psychology 5(4) 285ndash313

Gibson J J (1966) The senses considered as perceptual systems Boston MA Houghton MifflinGiordano B L (2005) Sound source perception in impact sounds Unpublished doctoral dissertation

University of Padova ItalyGuest S Catmur C Lloyd D amp Spence C (2002) Audiotactile interactions in roughness perception

Experimental Brain Research 146(2) 161ndash171Gunther E amp OrsquoModhrain S (2003) Cutaneous grooves Composing for the sense of touch Journal of

New Music Research 32 (4) 369ndash381Hlushchuk Y (2007) Tactile processing in human somatosensory and auditory cortices Unpublished doctoral

dissertation University of Helsinki FinlandHoumltting K Roumlsler F amp Roumlder B (2003) Crossmodal and intermodal attention modulate event-related

brain potentials to tactile and auditory stimuli Experimental Brain Research 148(1) 26ndash37Jousmaumlki V amp Hari R (1998) Parchment-skin illusion Sound-biased touch Current Biology 8(6) 190Lederman S J (1979) Auditory texture perception Perception 8(1) 93ndash103Lederman S J Klatzki R L Morgan T amp Hamilton C (2002) Integrating multimodal information

about surface texture via a probe Relative contribution of haptic and touch produced sound sources In Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems 2002 (pp 97ndash104) London IEEE Computer Societyrsquos Conference Publishing Services

Lewkowicz D J (2000) The development of intersensory temporal perception An epigenetic systemslimitations view Psychological Bulletin 126(2) 281ndash308

Lewkowicz D J amp Turkewitz G (1980) Cross-modal equivalence in early infancy Auditoryndashvisual intensity matching Developmental Psychology 16 597ndash607

Lipscomb S D amp Kim E M (2004) Perceived match between visual parameters and auditory correlates An experimental multimedia investigation In S Lipscomb R Ashley R Gjerdingen amp P Webster (Eds) Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC8) Evanston IL 3ndash8 August 2004 (pp 72ndash75) Adelaide Causal Productions

Marks L E (2004) Cross-modal interactions in speeded classification In G Calvert C Spence amp B E Stein (Eds) Handbook of multisensory processes (pp 85ndash106) Cambridge MA MIT Press

Marks L E Hammeal R J Bornstein M H amp Smith L B (1988) Perceiving similarity and comprehend-ing metaphor Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 52 (1 Serial No 215)

Martino G amp Marks L E (1999) Perceptual and linguistic interactions in speeded classification Tests of the semantic coding hypothesis Perception 28(7) 903ndash923

Martino G amp Marks L E (2001) Synesthesia Strong and weak Current Directions in Psychological Science 10(2) 61ndash65

Mursell J L (1937) The psychology of music New York NortonNakamura A (1987) The communication of dynamics between musicians and listeners through musi-

cal performance Perception and Psychophysics 41(6) 525ndash533Neuhoff J G amp McBeath M K (1996) The Doppler illusion The influence of dynamic intensity

change on perceived pitch Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance 22(4) 970ndash985



Neuhoff J G McBeath M K amp Wanzie W C (1999) Dynamic frequency change influences loudness perception A central analytic process Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance 25(4) 1050ndash1059

Osgood C E (1964) Semantic differential technique in the comparative study of cultures American Anthropologist 66 171ndash200

Osgood C E Suci G J amp Tannenbaum P H (1957) The measurement of meaning Chicago University of Illinois Press

Peeva D Baird B Izmirli O amp Blevins D (2004) Haptic and sound correlations Pitch loud-ness and texture In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information Visualization (IVrsquo04) (pp 659ndash664) London IEEE Computer Society

Rovan J amp Hayward V (2000) Typology of tactile sounds and their synthesis in gesture-driven com-puter music performance In M Wanderley amp M Battier (Eds) Trends in gestural control of music (pp 389ndash405) Paris IRCAM

Schroeder C E Lindsley R W Specht C Marcovici A Smiley J F amp Javitt D C (2001) Somatosensory input to auditory association cortex in the macaque monkey Journal of Neurophysiology 85(3) 1322ndash1327

Schuumlrmann M Caetano G Hlushchuk Y Jousmaumlki V amp Hari R (2006) Touch activates human auditory cortex NeuroImage 30(4) 1325ndash1331

Smith L B amp Sera M D(1992) A developmental analysis of the polar structure of dimensions Cognitive Psychology 24 99ndash142

Soto-Faraco S amp Deco G (2009) Multisensory contributions to the perception of vibrotactile events Behavioral Brain Research 196 145ndash154

Stevens S S (1934) The volume and intensity of tones American Journal of Psychology 46(3) 397ndash408Walker P amp Smith S (1984) Stroop interference based on the synaesthetic qualities of auditory pitch

Perception 13(1) 75ndash81Walker P amp Smith S (1986) The basis of Stroop interference involving the multimodal correlates of

auditory pitch Perception 15(4) 491ndash496Walker R (1987) The effects of culture environment age and musical training on choices of visual

metaphors for sound Perception and Psychophysics 42(5) 491ndash502Zampini M Guest S amp Spence C (2003) The role of auditory cues in modulating the perception of

electric toothbrushes Journal of Dental Research 82(11) 929ndash932

Biographies

Zohar Eitan is an associate professor at the School of Music Tel Aviv University Israel where he teaches and researches music cognition and music theory His research topics include cross-domain mappings in music the perception of motivic-thematic structure the perception of large-scale musical form and absolute pitch His recent work has been published in Cognition Music Perception Musicae Scientiae and Empirical Musicology Review

Inbar Rothschild is an Israeli pianist She has performed widely in Europe and the USA and recorded for Israeli Czech and Swiss radio stations She graduated with an MMus in Piano Performance from the Buchman-Mehta School of Music Tel Aviv University Israel where she studied with the late Pnina Salzman


How music touches Musical parameters and listenersrsquo audio-tactile metaphorical mappings

Zohar Eitan and Inbar RothschildSchool of Music Tel Aviv University Israel

AbstractThough the relationship of touch and sound is central to music performance and audio-tactile metaphors are pertinent to musical discourse few empirical studies have investigated systematically how musical parameters such as pitch height loudness timbre and their interactions affect auditoryndashtactile metaphorical mappings In this study 40 participants (20 musically trained) rated the appropriateness of six dichotomous tactile metaphors (sharpndashblunt smoothndashrough softndashhard lightndashheavy warmndashcold and wetndashdry) to 20 sounds varying in pitch height loudness instrumental timbre (violin vs flute) and vibrato Results (repeated measures MANOVA) suggest that tactile metaphors are strongly associated with all musical variables examined For instance higher pitches were rated as significantly sharper rougher harder colder drier and lighter than lower pitches We consider several complementary accounts of the findings psychophysical analogies between tactile and auditory sensory processing experiential analogies based on correlations between tactile and auditory qualities of sound sources in daily experience and analogies based on abstract semantic dimensions particularly potency and activity

Keywordscross-modal interaction haptic loudness metaphor music performance tactile

Background

For most performing musicians there is an immediate embodied connection between tactile and auditory qualities touch produces sound while tactile and haptic information serve together with audition and vision as feedback gauging the performed outcome (Rovan amp Hayward 2000) These intimate inter-modal relationships are often expressed in the terminol-ogy used to describe sound musical sounds are commonly referred to as lsquowarmrsquo lsquosoftrsquo lsquosharprsquo

Corresponding authorZohar Eitan School of Music Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv 69978 Israel[email zeitanposttauacil]

Psychology of Music39(4) 449ndash467

copy The Author(s) 2010Reprints and permission httpwww

sagepubcoukjournalsPermissionnavDOI 1011770305735610377592

pomsagepubcom

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Acknowledgments


Notes




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MethodParticipants





















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41 00246


506 00302


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Acknowledgments


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Biographies




music 2

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Transcript of music 2