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Timbre: Acoustics, Perception, and Cognition

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  • © 2019

Overview

Editors:
  1. Kai Siedenburg

    1. Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

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  2. Charalampos Saitis

    1. Audio Communication Group, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

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  3. Stephen McAdams

    1. Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

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  4. Arthur N. Popper

    1. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, Collage Park, USA

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  5. Richard R. Fay

    1. Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA

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  • Outlines the principal perceptual processes that orchestrate timbre processing
  • Explores timbre as part of specific scenarios, including the perception of the human voice
  • Details computational acoustic models of timbre

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (SHAR, volume 69)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. The Present, Past, and Future of Timbre Research

    • Kai Siedenburg, Charalampos Saitis, Stephen McAdams
    Pages 1-19

  3. Principal Perceptual Processes

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21
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    2. The Perceptual Representation of Timbre

      • Stephen McAdams
      Pages 23-57

    3. Timbre Recognition and Sound Source Identification

      • Trevor R. Agus, Clara Suied, Daniel Pressnitzer
      Pages 59-85

    4. Memory for Timbre

      • Kai Siedenburg, Daniel Müllensiefen
      Pages 87-118

    5. The Semantics of Timbre

      • Charalampos Saitis, Stefan Weinzierl
      Pages 119-149

    6. Neural Correlates of Timbre Processing

      • Vinoo Alluri, Sudarsana Reddy Kadiri
      Pages 151-172

  4. Specific Scenarios

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 173-173
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    2. Voice Processing and Voice-Identity Recognition

      • Samuel Robert Mathias, Katharina von Kriegstein
      Pages 175-209

    3. Timbre as a Structuring Force in Music

      • Stephen McAdams
      Pages 211-243

    4. Timbre, Sound Quality, and Sound Design

      • Guillaume Lemaitre, Patrick Susini
      Pages 245-272

    5. Timbre Perception with Cochlear Implants

      • Jeremy Marozeau, Wiebke Lamping
      Pages 273-293

  5. Acoustical Modeling

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 295-295
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    2. Audio Content Descriptors of Timbre

      • Marcelo Caetano, Charalampos Saitis, Kai Siedenburg
      Pages 297-333

    3. Modulation Representations for Speech and Music

      • Mounya Elhilali
      Pages 335-359

    4. Timbre from Sound Synthesis and High-Level Control Perspectives

      • Sølvi Ystad, Mitsuko Aramaki, Richard Kronland-Martinet
      Pages 361-389
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Keywords

About this book

Roughly defined as any property other than pitch, duration, and loudness that allows two sounds to be distinguished, timbre is a foundational aspect of hearing. The remarkable ability of humans to recognize sound sources and events (e.g., glass breaking, a friend’s voice, a tone from a piano) stems primarily from a capacity to perceive and process differences in the timbre of sounds. Timbre raises many important issues in psychology and the cognitive sciences, musical acoustics, speech processing, medical engineering, and artificial intelligence. Current research on timbre perception unfolds along three main fronts: On the one hand, researchers explore the principal perceptual processes that orchestrate timbre processing, such as the structure of its perceptual representation, sound categorization and recognition, memory for timbre, and its ability to elicit rich semantic associations, as well as the underlying neural mechanisms. On the other hand, timbre is studied as part of specificscenarios, including the perception of the human voice, as a structuring force in music, as perceived with cochlear implants, and through its role in affecting sound quality and sound design. Finally, computational acoustic models are sought through prediction of psychophysical data, physiologically inspired representations, and audio analysis-synthesis techniques. Along these three scientific fronts, significant breakthroughs have been achieved during the last decade. 

This volume will be the first book dedicated to a comprehensive and authoritative presentation of timbre perception and cognition research and the acoustic modeling of timbre. The volume will serve as a natural complement to the SHAR volumes on the basic auditory parameters of Pitch edited by Plack, Oxenham, Popper, and Fay, and Loudness by Florentine, Popper, and Fay. Moreover, through the integration of complementary scientific methods ranging from signal processing to brain imaging, the book has the potential to leverage new interdisciplinary synergies in hearing science. For these reasons, the volume will be exceptionally valuable to various subfields of hearing science, including cognitive auditory neuroscience, psychoacoustics, music perception and cognition, but may even exert significant influence on fields such as musical acoustics, music information retrieval, and acoustic signal processing.

It is expected that the volume will have broad appeal to psychologists, neuroscientists, and acousticians involved in research on auditory perception and cognition.  Specifically, this book will have a strong impact on hearing researchers with interest in timbre and will serve as the key publication and up-to-date reference on timbre for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, as well as established scholars. 




Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Kai Siedenburg

  • Audio Communication Group, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Charalampos Saitis

  • Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Stephen McAdams

  • Department of Biology, University of Maryland, Collage Park, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

  • Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA

    Richard R. Fay

About the editors

Dr. Kai Siedenburg is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Independent Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. 

Dr. Charalampos Saitis is Humboldt Research Fellow in the Audio Communication Group at the Technical University of Berlin. Drs. Saitis and Siedenburg have published papers on musical sound quality and timbre, respectively. They conceived and co-organized the 2017 Berlin Interdisciplinary Workshop on Timbre. 


Dr. Stephen McAdams is Canada Research Chair in Music Perception and Cognition and professor in the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, Montreal. Dr. McAdams is an internationally recognized expert on the perception and cognition of timbre. 



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Timbre: Acoustics, Perception, and Cognition

  • Editors: Kai Siedenburg, Charalampos Saitis, Stephen McAdams, Arthur N. Popper, Richard R. Fay

  • Series Title: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14832-4

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-14831-7Published: 15 May 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-14832-4Published: 07 May 2019

  • Series ISSN: 0947-2657

  • Series E-ISSN: 2197-1897

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVIII, 389

  • Number of Illustrations: 31 b/w illustrations, 45 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Neurosciences, Acoustics

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