Tritone illusions (Mike Flores)

Author

Michael Flores

Principle(s) Illustrated

The tritone paradox is an auditory illusion in which a sequentially played pair of Shepard tones [1] separated by an interval of a tritone, or half octave, is heard as ascending by some people and as descending by others.[2] Different populations tend to favor one of a limited set of different spots around the chromatic circle as central to the set of "higher" tones. Roger Shepard in 1963 had argued that such tone pairs would be heard ambiguously as either ascending or descending. However, psychology of music researcher Diana Deutsch in 1986 discovered that when the judgments of individual listeners were considered separately, their judgments depended on the positions of the tones along the chromatic circle. For example, one listener would hear the tone pair C–F♯ as ascending and the tone pair G–C♯ as descending. Yet another listener would hear the tone pair C–F♯ as descending and the tone pair G–C♯ as ascending. Furthermore, the way these tone pairs were perceived varied depending on the listener’s language or dialect.

NGGS standard

  • HS-LS1-2. Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms. Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on functions at the organism system level such as nutrient uptake, water delivery, and organism movement in response to neural stimuli. An example of an interacting system could be an artery depending on the proper function of elastic tissue and smooth muscle to regulate and deliver the proper amount of blood within the circulatory system.

Cross-cutting concepts

  • Systems and System Models

  • Models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions—including energy, matter, and information flows—within and between systems at different scales.

DCI

  • Feedback mechanisms maintain a living system’s internal conditions within certain limits and mediate behaviors, allowing it to remain alive and functional even as external conditions change within some range. Feedback mechanisms can encourage (through positive feedback) or discourage (negative feedback) what is going on inside the living system. (HS-LS1-3)

Questioning Script

Prior knowledge & experience:

Students know that the brain process auditory sounds and translates them into something we understand

Sound travels as waves

Music tones can be interpreted in different ways

Root question:

Does the location of your birth/residence determine your ability to distinguish tones

Target response:

It depends on certain locations

Common Misconceptions:

Auditory sound waves are different from other types of waves

All sound waves have a general pattern

Photographs and Movies

I will use the link above to start video, you will record your answers on this quickwrite to record your responses

References

Wikipedia

  • Deutsch, D. (1986). "A musical paradox". Music Perception. 3: 275–280. doi:10.2307/40285337. Weblink PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (1986). "An auditory paradox". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 80: s93. doi:10.1121/1.2024050. Weblink

  • Deutsch, D. (1987). "The tritone paradox: Effects of spectral variables". Perception & Psychophysics. 41 (6): 563–575. PMID 3615152. doi:10.3758/BF03210490.PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D., North, T. and Ray, L. (1990). "The tritone paradox: Correlate with the listener's vocal range for speech". Music Perception. 7: 371–384. doi:10.2307/40285473. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (1991). "The tritone paradox: An influence of language on music perception". Music Perception. 8: 335–347. doi:10.2307/40285517. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (1992). "Paradoxes of musical pitch". Scientific American. 267 (2): 88–95. PMID 1641627. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0892-88. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (1992). "Some new pitch paradoxes and their implications. In Auditory Processing of Complex Sounds". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 336 (1278): 391–397. PMID 1354379. doi:10.1098/rstb.1992.0073. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (1997). "The tritone paradox: A link between music and speech". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 6 (6): 174–180. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772951. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D., Henthorn T. and Dolson, M. (2004). "Speech patterns heard early in life influence later perception of the tritone paradox". Music Perception. 21 (3): 357–372. doi:10.1525/mp.2004.21.3.357. PDF Document

  • Deutsch, D. (2007). "Mothers and their offspring perceive the tritone paradox in closely similar ways". Archives of Acoustics. 32: 3–14. PDF Document