Bruzzi Elena, Talamini Francesca, Priftis Konstantinos, Grassi Massimo
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.
Iperception. 2017 Nov 21;8(6):2041669517742175. doi: 10.1177/2041669517742175. eCollection 2017 Nov-Dec.
Various reports suggest that the pitch height of musical tones may be represented along a mental space, with lower pitch heights represented on the left or lower sectors and higher pitch heights represented on the right or upper sectors of the mental space. Given that in Western languages the loudness of tones is often addressed spatially, with loud sounds referred to as "high" and quiet sounds referred to as "low," here we investigated whether loudness might also have a spatial representation. Participants judged whether a tone was louder or quieter than a reference tone, by pressing two keys: one at the top and the other at the bottom of a response box. Participants were faster in a situation where they pressed the key at the top to report louder sounds, and the key at the bottom to report quieter sounds, than vice versa. This result supports the view that loudness, like other types of magnitudes, might be represented spatially.
各种报告表明，音调的音高可能在心理空间中呈现，较低的音高在心理空间的左侧或较低区域呈现，而较高的音高在心理空间的右侧或较高区域呈现。鉴于在西方语言中，音调的响度通常在空间上进行描述，大声被称为“高”，小声被称为“低”，在此我们研究了响度是否也可能有空间表征。参与者通过按下两个按键来判断一个音调比参考音调更响还是更轻：一个在反应盒的顶部，另一个在底部。当参与者按下顶部按键报告更响亮的声音，按下底部按键报告更安静的声音时，他们的反应速度比相反情况更快。这一结果支持了这样一种观点，即响度与其他类型的量值一样，可能在空间上得到表征。
