The last edition of the German (snake-oil) HiFi-magazine AUDIO (http://www.audio.de) reported on some interesting recent research on hearing. They claim humanity is made up of two types of listeners: the
fundamental tone hearer and the
overtone hearer. They go on and say that the former is prevalently hearing with the left side of his brain and usually prefers melodic music and higher instruments (piano, violin, flute), while the latter is hearing with his ride side and favours instruments with rich timbre (voice, bassoon, cello).
There is a simple test, to find out to which class you belong. A pair of sounds is played and you decide whether the frequency is increasing or decreasing.
Here is the file: audio.de - overtone.flac (http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0025119/audio/audio-overtone/audio.de_-_overtone.flac)There is a total of 12 pairs. A German-speaking voice introduces each iteration and every pair is
repeated once. For each sequence jot down, whether you thought the frequency to be increasing or decreasing.
Afterwards compare your results with this table:
incr decr
1 x
2 x
3 x
4 x
5 x
6 x
7 x
8 x
9 x
10 x
11 x
12 x
The more your results agree with this list, the more you are a fundamental tone hearer. If your result is the exact inverse of the above, you are a pure overtone hearer.
While I don't agree with the alleged implications of the test (myself being an absolute fundamental tone hearer yet strongly preferring chromatic, timbre rich music), I find the basic idea (two types of listening) intriguing enough to warrant a discussion among a more technology inclined, sceptic crowd.
I figure posting a few test tones for an "academic" discussion should fall under fair use.
Interesting.
With the exception of the first pair I had the completely opposite result and hence must be overtone hearer.
Nevertheless I cannot say to prefer any of the mentioned instruments. However, harpsichord, one of my favourite instruments, tends to be in the first group, also contradicting the implications.
I guess I am more of a fundamental tone hearer
So, if you get totally identical results then you're using your left brain, and if you get exactly inverse results then you're using your right brain?
What does it mean if you get 7 identical results and 5 different results? Does it mean you're using both sides of the brain or does it mean you're using neither?
Have you performed the test?
At least Continuum and I had pretty consistent results.
They claim humanity is made up of two types of listeners: the fundamental tone hearer and the overtone hearer
what did they just pull this out of their ass or do they have any emperical evidence? I haven't performed the test yet, but according to this I would more than likely be more left side of the brain even though psychologically I am not left brained . I know stringed instruments have numerous overtones though. I don't understand how a noise increasing or decreasing in frequency can tell you what type of listener you are from a Psychoacoustical perspective. If I was taking a critical listening class in order to determine ascending or descending scales in music maybe.
Strange, all my results match exactly with the table, but cello has always been one of my favourite instruments because of its overtones
Have you performed the test?
At least Continuum and I had pretty consistent results.
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I have. I tried to repeat the tune of the tones by humming, and then I decided if my hums either went down or up. I got 7 vs 5.
9/12 consistency with the table - mostly fundamentals then, if that's to be trusted.
This raises an interesting issue though - I am a competent musician, and I play well by ear, but I've often been fascinated by the fact that I can hear chords very clearly, but not the constituent notes. I can recognise progressions and subtle harmonic changes, and find them quickly on the piano, but I find it very difficult to pick the notes of a chord out in isolation (ie. sing them back). I hear the 'colour' of the chord as whole but not the individual notes very well.
Wonder how this relates to the topic under discussion.
C
I'm a complete fundamental tone hearer it seems, but I can't seem to find any correlation between that and the suggested instruments I'm supposed to be in favour of.
intriguing enough to warrant a discussion among a more technology inclined, sceptic crowd.
This is a psychoacoustics issue. It's a human science, not a technology related study (unless one models a human as a deterministic machine, which is possible, although there are still black boxes).
It requires understanding of psychophysics and psychoacoustics.
At my current level of understanding, their argument sounds rather odd. If I understand your summary of what they are claiming, I think it's mis-phrased of probably just wrong.
Humans are overtone hearers, based on the research I've read.
All humans can be fooled to hear the virtual pitch with the missing fundamental. This implies that ability to reconstruct the fundamental pitch from the overtones is built-in to the central nervous system.
Now, if they mean that in normal situations, either overtones or the fundamental is more weighted depending on the hearer, this is an interesting argument.
However, I wonder how one can make a test for it: if you remove the fundamental, it's not a normal case anymore. Same goes if you tamper with the overtones.
Now, how do you discern with untampered musical tones (with fundamental and overtones intact), which of them is the more overriding factor in pitch detection for each hearer?
fMRI might produce some data, but I'm not up-to-date whether pitch processing has been located accurately on the cortex (it is a central nervous system processing issue, not an ear issue).
I can recognise progressions and subtle harmonic changes, and find them quickly on the piano, but I find it very difficult to pick the notes of a chord out in isolation (ie. sing them back). I hear the 'colour' of the chord as whole but not the individual notes very well.
I'm assuming you are referring to the difference between having an accurate relative pitch detection vs. having an accurate absolute pitch detection?
They are different abilities (or skills). Relative pitch can be trained practically by anyone. Absolute pitch may not (by current understanding) be trainable by everyone, but seems to be more of a inhererited trait where early training may have some influence on whether the ability manifests or not.
Or then I completely misunderstood what you were trying to say
6/12...what am i
I matched all 12 with the original poster's.
My favorite instrument is piano/organ, I like melodies, and don't like bass as much.
They claim humanity is made up of two types of listeners: the fundamental tone hearer and the overtone hearer. They go on and say that the former is prevalently hearing with the left side of his brain and usually prefers melodic music and higher instruments (piano, violin, flute), while the latter is hearing with his ride side and favours instruments with rich timbre (voice, bassoon, cello).
As a matter of fact, the boundaries between the two extreme types of listeners are reported as being gliding.
Additionally, fundamental tone hearers are believed to be more sensible towards proper signal phase, impulse precision (transients) and "time-right" playback with low runtime differences.
Overtone heares, on the other hand, are believed to be more sensible towards tonality and more 'forgiving' towards runtime differences (e.g. between woofers and tweeters of loudspeakers) that fundamental tone hearers are particularly critical towards.
I find these results highly interesting because it involves some serious research among a group of purposedly mixed listeners like pro musicians, hobby music enthusiasts and everyday people. Measurements include EEG analysis to assess how e.g. intensely the listening cortex of each participant is working during the listening experience.
At this time, it is nothing more than enhanced basic research ... but research is pointing in the right direction IMO.
This is a psychoacoustics issue. It's a human science, not a technology related study (unless one models a human as a deterministic machine, which is possible, although there are still black boxes).
Yes, you are right. The word technical was meant to allude to the means of studying this effect, that is by things like FFT-analysis or MRI, as I am less concerned with the statistical soundness or the psychological or sociological ramifications.
Humans are overtone hearers, based on the research I've read.
All humans can be fooled to hear the virtual pitch with the missing fundamental. This implies that ability to reconstruct the fundamental pitch from the overtones is built-in to the central nervous system.
Now, if they mean that in normal situations, either overtones or the fundamental is more weighted depending on the hearer, this is an interesting argument.
However, I wonder how one can make a test for it: if you remove the fundamental, it's not a normal case anymore. Same goes if you tamper with the overtones.
I'm afraid that's what they did: remove the fundamental tone. Maybe you are right in that all humans can reconstruct a missing fundamental. The conclusion of this test, however, is, that this is done to a quite varying degree.
Now, how do you discern with untampered musical tones (with fundamental and overtones intact), which of them is the more overriding factor in pitch detection for each hearer?
Without doubt, this is the more interesting question, although it appears to be quite difficult to implement a test for it. The current test can be taken by anyone in just two minutes.
As a matter of fact, the boundaries between the two extreme types of listeners are reported as being gliding.
Yes, I should have pointed that out more clearly. They give no exact numbers, but the graph is rather flat with peaks at both ends, so quite different from a random binomial distribution.
I got 11/12. On foobars spectral view the band narrows from the opposite direction of where the tone is said to go, so if it "goes lower", there's actually less energy on the lower end.
9/12 consistency with the table - mostly fundamentals then, if that's to be trusted.
This raises an interesting issue though - I am a competent musician, and I play well by ear, but I've often been fascinated by the fact that I can hear chords very clearly, but not the constituent notes. I can recognise progressions and subtle harmonic changes, and find them quickly on the piano, but I find it very difficult to pick the notes of a chord out in isolation (ie. sing them back). I hear the 'colour' of the chord as whole but not the individual notes very well.
Wonder how this relates to the topic under discussion.
C
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I have the same ability to hear the"colour" of a chord, and I scored 12/12.
I can recognise progressions and subtle harmonic changes, and find them quickly on the piano, but I find it very difficult to pick the notes of a chord out in isolation (ie. sing them back). I hear the 'colour' of the chord as whole but not the individual notes very well.
I'm assuming you are referring to the difference between having an accurate relative pitch detection vs. having an accurate absolute pitch detection?
...
Or then I completely misunderstood what you were trying to say
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Yeah, that's not quite what I meant; sorry for the confusion. I meant that if I listen to, say, two or three voices singing in harmony, I can hear very well the intrinsic harmonic relationships and play them on the piano quite easily, yet I couldn't sing you back any of the parts in isolation (except the melody line) very easily. Oh, and the bass line - that sticks out too.
I think that relates to this test in that I could hear that the test tones played two notes at a time, yet I could only 'hear' one part. I guess this tests which one you most clearly hear when there is no clear 'lead' part.
C
I don't feel qualified to judge my own hearing.
I scored 0/12 based on the table (exact opposite)
Audigy 2 NX, AKG K240 headphones (not that it matters)
Pure overtone hearer (2/12).
I pay too much attention to voice and high frequencies. That's almost my notion of "fidelity", odd.
Interesting. With headphones (tried two types) I match the given table 100%. With speakers I tend to say number 7 is increasing rather than decreasing. With a little concentration I can now make 7 sound either way, while from the rest I clearly favor one or the other.
I do like cello very much though.
I am not conscious of liking or not liking music the way the article claims.
6/12
12/12 match with the table, yay! I can hear fundamental tones!
I got 11/12. On foobars spectral view the band narrows from the opposite direction of where the tone is said to go, so if it "goes lower", there's actually less energy on the lower end.
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Here is a spectral view of the first pair:
(http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0025119/audio/audio-overtone/audio.de-spectrum.png)
Obviously, they cut off more than just the fundamental!
Here is the sonogram of the sample :
I got 100% exact answers to the table, so I guess I'm a fundamental tone listener. But I let some of my colleagues try the test, and for a good proportion of the samples, they made the opposite conclusion or were left guessing (ie. they couldn't hear the difference).
I find it weird, that someone who thinks number 1 is decreasing, is a fundamentalist, while in fact the fundamental changes to a higher pitch. Same goes for the other samples.
P.S.: Please excuse the silly pun.
Every sequence is basically a chord in the normal position, followed by another (different) chord in an inverted position. e.g. C-E-G (I), B-D-G (V). As others have pointed out, the "center of energy" has moved down, but the root has gone from C to G.
When I tried the test using my desktop speakers, I tested as a 0/12 (overtones). When I tried it again 10 hours later with my Sennheiser 850's, I tested 9/12 (more fundamental).
What is up with THAT?
JeanLuc pointed out an interesting fact:
I recall not being able to distinguish between my speakers in phase and out of phase (one pair of cables crossed).
This would correlate with my result.
Edit: Typo
I find it weird, that someone who thinks number 1 is decreasing, is a fundamentalist, while in fact the fundamental changes to a higher pitch.
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It doesn't. The pitch of the (removed) fundamental is the same as the distance between two harmonics, so as they get closer the frequency decreases.
Continuum,
your interpretation is not completely right (at least as long benski's analysis is correct): The fundamental (base tone) is not removed but one octave higher.
9/12 consistency with the table - mostly fundamentals then, if that's to be trusted.
This raises an interesting issue though - I am a competent musician, and I play well by ear, but I've often been fascinated by the fact that I can hear chords very clearly, but not the constituent notes. I can recognise progressions and subtle harmonic changes, and find them quickly on the piano, but I find it very difficult to pick the notes of a chord out in isolation (ie. sing them back). I hear the 'colour' of the chord as whole but not the individual notes very well.
Wonder how this relates to the topic under discussion.
C
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You know, that reminds of how speech recognition works for vowel sounds. You measure the harmonics, and pick the harmonics that are louder than adjacent ones. The first of these is the first formant, and the second of these is the second formant. You call those harmonics "formant frequencies."
When you hear
, [a], or , the main difference between the sounds is the difference between the formants. You can hear the distinct vowels very clearly, but not the individual constituent formants.
I wonder how *this* relates to the topic under discussion.
You know, that reminds of how speech recognition works for vowel sounds. You measure the harmonics, and pick the harmonics that are louder than adjacent ones. The first of these is the first formant, and the second of these is the second formant. You call those harmonics "formant frequencies."
When you hear , [a], or , the main difference between the sounds is the difference between the formants. You can hear the distinct vowels very clearly, but not the individual constituent formants.
I wonder how *this* relates to the topic under discussion.
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The formants aren't really the individual harmonics. They are simply peaks in the power spectral envelope caused by the resonances in the vocal tract. The individual harmonics are related to the pitch and represent the glottal excitation (the vocal cords vibrating) that gets 'filtered' by the vocal trac.
One of the issues of speech recognition is to recognise words, sub-words, or phonemes, rather than the person speaking. It is known that pitch and related measures are often speaker-specific (and gender-specific, of course) so it is desirable to remove this information for speech recognition (called speaker normalisation). That is why LPCCs (linear prediction cepstral coefficients) were one of the earlier features used in speech recognition, since linear prediction separates the power spectral envelope from the underlying harmonic structure (contained in the residual). Also, MFCCs (Mel frequency-warped cepstral coeffs) which are now the most popular features used in speech recognition are calculated based on the output energies of triangular filterbanks warped on the Mel scale. Hence, nearly all of the harmonic structure has been removed (smoothed out by the filters) and only the envelope/shape is kept.
5/12 - I guess that edges me into the overtone category.
I'm unable to pass this test consistently. When I took it the first time, I percepted it as chords and I couldn't really decide if given test is inc or dec (depends on which tone I focus on). Then I took it the second time and I tried to "sing" these sounds in my mind, then they got somehow more consistent but different than the first time.
So, the results seem to depend on how you come to this test - if you come to it technically, like trying to figure how would you play these sounds on some polyphonic instrument (or how does its spectrum look like), then the results will be different than if you come to it purely aesthetically, like you do while listening to the music.
your interpretation is not completely right (at least as long benski's analysis is correct): The fundamental (base tone) is not removed but one octave higher.
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There is a misunderstanding. I'm talking about the
fundamental frequency in the harmonic series, benski talks about the
root of a chord (apparently sometimes called fundamental as well).
Cool thing. I am a fundamental tone hearer with a bug. Tone 7 is inverted to me!
hawkeye : continuum's interpretation is correct.
In fact, what happens in the 12 sound couples present in this sample, is that they are made of the last N (N= 2, 3, 4, ...) harmonics of different fundamentals, up to the LCM of the two fundamentals. But they never include the fundamental harmonic.
So the lower frequency the fundamental, the lower the distance between its harmonics.
Because of this, as the LCM (the higher band on the spectrum view of both sounds) is the same, the frequency of the N harmonics just before LCM are higher for the lower frequency fundamental than for the higher frequency fundamentals.
So the sound which has the lower fundamental (the fundamental is the GCD of all the harmonics) has the higher N harmonics before the first common harmonic (which is LCM of the fundamentals of the two sounds).
(LCM = lowest common multiple, GCD=greatest common divider)
For example, take couple number 12.
(I used audacity, hence the screenshots are from it.)
Its spectrum is
.
Vincent
If your an fundamental tone hearer and want "hear" it like an overtone hearer, concentrate on the tests long enough, and you'll soon get the "overtones only". (It's like that 3d cube thing - it can be a cube or a corner).
Wombat : note that the 7th couple, on which you fall, is exactly the one having a difference in that the harmonics of sound having the lowest fundamental are taken at LCM and LCM+1*fundamental instead of LCM and LCM-1*fundamental. This raises the energy in higher frequencies, and thus confuses more the listenner.
JeanLuc pointed out an interesting fact:
I recall not being able to distinguish between my speakers in phase and out of phase (one pair of cables crossed).[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358498"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It must be because you were not exactly at the same distance of both. In a shop, I did not noticed it until I moved in front of the listeners in order to have the speakers positionned symetrically before me. The inversion is then obvious.
JeanLuc pointed out an interesting fact:
I recall not being able to distinguish between my speakers in phase and out of phase (one pair of cables crossed).[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358498"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It must be because you were not exactly at the same distance of both. In a shop, I did not noticed it until I moved in front of the listeners in order to have the speakers positionned symetrically before me. The inversion is then obvious.
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I did not make myself clear enough I guess ...
So-called 'Fundamentals' are believed to be very sensible to phase shifting of a kind that is e.g. caused by steep crossover networks in the crossover frequency range ... that's why these people might prefer 2-way speakers with a simple 6dB/octave crossover.
An inverted phase of one channel will most likely lead to unknown interferences and frequency band cancellations (especially in the low-end beneath 200 Hz) which would be a rather tonal issue - a plain lack of bass ...
Thanks everyone who helped me understand. Especially vinouz for the detailed explanation.
Well, it seem I'm a 100% fundamental tone hearer which probably true because I prefer piano to cello.
Since some people hear differences with speakers or headphones i tried it also and can´t repeat it. I always have the same scores and tone 7 is still inverted of course.
Maybe i drunk something away on the left part of my brain
Edit: Brain parts
same as the table except for #5 (11/12)
apparently I'm a fundamental tone hearer
I just find it interesting how different people hear things differently (or interpret what is heard differently)
looks like I'm a fundamental one too
nr. 5 is more a guess for me, I do hear a difference but I can hardly say if it's going up or down. Well, my ears aren't trained at all, so this might be the problem here. Nr.7 is inverted of course, everything else is as in the Table.
0/12 so according to this I'm a pure overtone hearer. The notion of the preferred instruments though, is only somewhat correct. On few of the samples I wasn't sure and I made the choice based on the first impression. On those samples I could easily think that it was the opposite really.
12/12. Does that come from being a bass player ? On the other hand I much prefer 'cello and bassoon to piano or violin, so I don't think it's too useful a conclusion
12/12 - damn, I'm a fundamentalist!
But the description given by Jean-Luc
Additionally, fundamental tone hearers are believed to be more sensible towards proper signal phase, impulse precision (transients) and "time-right" playback with low runtime differences.
suits me perfectly!
I got 11/12 using headphones, though for several of them I could also hear chord tones going in the opposite direction from the 'main' direction. But really, aren't one's age (i.e., high frequency hearing) and the frequency response of the playback setup always going to be factors? If so then it would be wrong to conclude what one 'is', from this test.
This study really interested me. I play violin and it's always struck me that while I'm fast at picking up melodies I have no ability to identify chords at all- aural exams were always a disaster and even pitching my voice to sing in a choir is pretty challenging! I got a clear 12/12 on the test which fits pretty well. Sounds like there's something in it....it would be fascinating to know what different composers would have scored on this test...
I don't feel qualified to judge my own hearing.
I scored 0/12 based on the table (exact opposite)
Audigy 2 NX, AKG K240 headphones (not that it matters)
I'm with ya. 1/12. All those years I thought I was tone deaf.. nope, I'm over-tone deaf!
The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.
Essentially, what they get as the "effect" is: people who prefer tone-class A, have higher activity in the left side of the brain. And for those who prefer tone-class B, the opposite is true.
This is a valid statement about the effect they are seeing. They do however then make an invalid conclusion about the "cause". Being natural science chauvinists, they exclude any "mind->body" cause beforehand (because natural science cannot handle that :) and automatically asume a "body->mind" cause. Thus, they asume "people like tone-class A more beCAUSE of their brain-structure dictates them to do so".
Thus, they use a test-method which has well known shortcomings, and then fix those shortcomings by making invalid asumptions about the testobject". Why? Well, because natural science works great in the material domain, but not at all in the mental domain. Thus, they fix it by simply asuming that you have no consciousness. But as every HA.org reader knows by the rule of the holy TOS#8, this is bullshit. Of course, it may be the case that their asumption is correct. But they cannot know beforehand.
- Lyx
Yeah, that's not quite what I meant; sorry for the confusion. I meant that if I listen to, say, two or three voices singing in harmony, I can hear very well the intrinsic harmonic relationships and play them on the piano quite easily, yet I couldn't sing you back any of the parts in isolation (except the melody line) very easily. Oh, and the bass line - that sticks out too.
In other words, you can easily hear that it's a major seventh chord, or a dominant seventh (or whatever the case may be) - but you can only identify the lowest and highest notes of the chords? The exact voicing of the inner voices eludes you?
It's completely normal and typical. Everyone has this problem at first. If you were to take some formal courses in aural theory (ear training) you would find that harmonic dictation usually starts this way - you first learn to transcribe only the bass and soprano and later add the inner voices.
The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.
Who are "they"? The Austrian research team or the German HiFi journalists ?
This thread is new to me, so I might have missed a few things.
If this test is part of a scientific study, are there any links to the sources available ? Thanks.
Kees de Visser
(FWIW: 12/12, pianist and recording engineer)
12/12, so I guess I'm 100% fundamentalist! And it's true that I like piano and flute more than cello and bassoon...
The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.
Essentially, what they get as the "effect" is: people who prefer tone-class A, have higher activity in the left side of the brain. And for those who prefer tone-class B, the opposite is true.
This is a valid statement about the effect they are seeing. They do however then make an invalid conclusion about the "cause". Being natural science chauvinists, they exclude any "mind->body" cause beforehand (because natural science cannot handle that and automatically asume a "body->mind" cause. Thus, they asume "people like tone-class A more beCAUSE of their brain-structure dictates them to do so".
Thus, they use a test-method which has well known shortcomings, and then fix those shortcomings by making invalid asumptions about the testobject". Why? Well, because natural science works great in the material domain, but not at all in the mental domain. Thus, they fix it by simply asuming that you have no consciousness. But as every HA.org reader knows by the rule of the holy TOS#8, this is bullshit. Of course, it may be the case that their asumption is correct. But they cannot know beforehand.
- Lyx
I was shocked,
shocked I say, to see that amongst your interests is philosophy.
Anyway, I heard only fundamental tones.
I was shocked, shocked I say, to see that amongst your interests is philosophy.
Yup, some people are shocked about philosophy :-) And will always be. It sometimes threatens common beliefs.
- Lyx
maybe a stupid question, do you have to pick the pitch difference in each pair (each pair is played twice, so you always get two same results in a row)? If so, then I got a clear 12/12, and I have hard time understanding someone would get different answer.
3/12 is my result.
Same as ref table. Looks like that's what most people hear.
Hi all, I joined this forum just to join into this discussion. Great thread.
I was going through the book Auditory Perception by the late F. Alton Everest and in it he has a test for the "case of the missing fundamental" whereby he plays a 400, 600 and 1000 Hz pure tone individually and then combined. The book then states "The [perceived] pitch of the combination is not that of the 400-, the 600-, or even the 1000-Hz tone; neither is it a mixture or average of the three. Rather, what we here is the pitch of a 200-Hz tone!"
Ironically my brain hears the 3 distinct tones and a very very faint 200 Hz--which I only heard when he played the "phantom" 200 Hz test tone afterwards (as a comparison). Therefore I must be an overtone hearer right...?
I got a little concerned since I consider myself to be an audio engineer and accomplished musician. So I ran the test with several other people, and each of their perceived hearing agreed with the book, i.e. they were all fundamental hearers. I'm assuming they would score close to a 12/12 on the matrix presented in this thread.
Now here is what is interesting. I took this test, but in two different ways, since I already knew the *science* behind what the results would determine. Using headphones (to eliminate any phase issues) and without looking at the matrix key, I took the test normally, then I went through it again, and without referring to my first results, I listened to just the overtones [I tried to be completely unbiased and didn't listen for the fundamental, as obviously I realized that I could have just picked the opposite of the direction of the fundamental result]. I could distinctly hear the overtones. I centered my focus on the highest overtone to test if it went up or down. My results of the second test: 0/12. I got 9 results completely opposite and 3 that I had to leave blank as I couldn't hear which direction the overtone was moving.
Conclusion: Well, according to these test tones I clearly default to a fundamental tone hearer, but using the test from Everest's book, I clearly am an overtone hearer. Based also on other people's posts in this thread, I would conclude that depending on the frequency, you may alternate between the two. Or in Vinous' case, once he heard the other it was hard to go back.
If indeed this is somehow tied to your left/right brain, then I make a perfect candidate for being confused. I'm not really ambidextrous per say, I'm actually all over the place. I don't primarily use either side of my brain, so I guess you could say I'm a Jack at both sides of the brain but good at none .
Vinous, thank you for your post. Would you be willing to repost the test tones? I'd love to listen.
Here is an excerpt of Everest's test: CaseOfMissingFundamental (http://opfers.com/media/CaseOfMissingFundamental.flac)
I'd be curious to see how many hear 3 distinct tones and represent the overtone hearer. Do the results from this test agree with the test presented in this thread's test?
Here is an excerpt of Everest's test: CaseOfMissingFundamental (http://opfers.com/media/CaseOfMissingFundamental.flac)
I'd be curious to see how many hear 3 distinct tones and represent the overtone hearer. Do the results from this test agree with the test presented in this thread's test?
I hear something like 3 distinct tones in the Everest test. I hear an impure tone to which I cannot really ascribe any similarity to 200 Hz.
In the German Hi Fi magazine test, I came up as being an overtone hearer.
Not hearing the 200 Hz either. I can easily pick out the 1000 and 400 Hz tones. The 600 Hz tone is more difficult to pick out and hold as an individual tone, but it's still there too.
Very interresting. I just tried the test on my girlfriend which I suspected had a different hearing than mine.
I'm a pure fundamental-hearer and I prefer melodic music. My girlfriend listens to a lot of alternative music, classical and often prefers vocal music - A broad range. The test results are mixed 50/50:
incr decr
1 x (F)
2 x (O)
3 x (O)
4 x (F)
5 x (O)
6 x (F)
7 x (O)
8 x (F)
9 x (O)
10 undecided
11 x (F)
12 x (F)
(FWIW: 12/12, pianist and recording engineer)
Out of curiosity I redid the test recently (almost 4 years later) and the result remains exactly the same, 12/12.
I wonder if the researchers came to any conclusions. Has anyone seen publications about the subject ?