marvellous are Thy works;
Psalm 139:14
"Music and speech are among the most frequent types of sounds we hear.
Q: But how do we identify what we think are differences between the two?
"Although music and speech are different in many ways, ranging
from pitch to timbre to sound texture, our results show that the auditory system uses strikingly simple acoustic parameters to distinguish music and speech," explains Andrew Chang.
Scientists gauge the rate of signals by precise units of measurement: Hertz (Hz). A larger number of Hz means a greater number of occurrences (or cycles) per second than a lower number.
It has been well documented that a song's volume, or loudness, over time—what's known as "amplitude modulation"—is relatively steady at 1–2 Hz.
"Although music and speech are different in many ways, ranging
Scientists gauge the rate of signals by precise units of measurement: Hertz (Hz). A larger number of Hz means a greater number of occurrences (or cycles) per second than a lower number.
It has been well documented that a song's volume, or loudness, over time—what's known as "amplitude modulation"—is relatively steady at 1–2 Hz.
By contrast, the amplitude modulation of speech is typically 4–5 Hz, meaning its volume changes frequently.
Despite the ubiquity and familiarity of music and speech, scientists previously lacked clear understanding of how we effortlessly and automatically identify a sound as music or speech.
If there's a certain feature in the soundwave that matches listeners' idea of how music or speech should be, even a white noise clip can sound like music or speech.
The results showed that our auditory system uses surprisingly simple and basic acoustic parameters to distinguish music and speech: to participants, clips with slower rates (<2Hz) and more regular amplitude modulation sounded more like music, while clips with higher rates (~4Hz) and more irregular amplitude modulation sounded more like speech."
If there's a certain feature in the soundwave that matches listeners' idea of how music or speech should be, even a white noise clip can sound like music or speech.
The results showed that our auditory system uses surprisingly simple and basic acoustic parameters to distinguish music and speech: to participants, clips with slower rates (<2Hz) and more regular amplitude modulation sounded more like music, while clips with higher rates (~4Hz) and more irregular amplitude modulation sounded more like speech."
NewYorkUniversity
