School of Science and Engineering, Kokushikan University, Tokyo, Japan.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2022 Jun;75(6):1186-1191. doi: 10.1177/17470218211048032. Epub 2021 Sep 29.
Timbre is an integral dimension of musical sound quality, and people accumulate knowledge about timbre of sounds generated by various musical instruments throughout their life. Recent studies have proposed the possibility that musical sound is crossmodally integrated with visual information related to the sound. However, little is known about the influence of visual information on musical timbre perception. The present study investigated the automaticity of crossmodal integration between musical timbre and visual image of hands playing musical instruments. In the experiment, an image of hands playing piano or violin, or a control scrambled image was presented to participants unconsciously. Simultaneously, participants heard intermediate sounds synthesised by morphing piano and violin sounds with the same note. The participants answered whether the musical tone sounded like piano or violin. The results revealed that participants were more likely to perceive violin sound when an image of a violin was presented unconsciously than when playing piano was presented. This finding indicates that timbral perception of musical sound is influenced by visual information of musical performance without conscious awareness, supporting the automaticity of crossmodal integration in musical timbre perception.
音品是音乐音质的一个固有维度，人们在一生中积累了关于各种乐器产生的声音的音品知识。最近的研究提出了这样一种可能性，即音乐声音与与声音相关的视觉信息在感觉上是跨模态整合的。然而，关于视觉信息对音乐音品感知的影响知之甚少。本研究调查了音乐音品和演奏乐器的手的视觉图像之间的跨模态自动整合。在实验中，无意识地向参与者呈现手弹钢琴或小提琴的图像，或呈现控制乱序图像。同时，参与者听到由钢琴和小提琴声音以相同音符变形而成的中间声音。参与者回答音乐音调听起来像钢琴还是小提琴。结果表明，当呈现小提琴的图像时，参与者更有可能感知到小提琴的声音，而不是呈现钢琴的声音。这一发现表明，对音乐声音的音品感知受到音乐演奏的视觉信息的影响，而无需有意识的觉察，支持音乐音品感知中的跨模态自动整合。
