Words that describe timbre

[maxhodges1]

Musicians and music listeners often describe timbre (the "quality" or "color" of sound) with words such as "bright" or "warm", "ethereal" or "metallic". The purpose of our study is to investigate the relationship between auditory perception and language in this context.

We are interested in finding out what words people use to describe sounds -- and whether everyone uses a common vocabulary, or whether the choice of words is related to a person's musical or cultural background -- and how the chosen words relate to a sound's timbral characteristics.

Please note: to complete this survey you need a multimedia computer with speakers or headphones. If you do not have access to one, and you are in the area, please contact us to come do the survey at the MIT Media Lab near Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA (USA).

Your responses to the following survey will help us gather data to answer these questions. Thanks for your time!


http://www.media.mit.edu/~y_yang/perceptual