Brightness scaling of periodic tones

Abstract

Brightness is an attribute often used by musicians when describing timbral characteristics. It is related to the spectral distribution of energy, as is sharpness, studied by Zwicker (Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models,1990). In the current work, subjects adjusted the spectral slope and thus the spectral centroid (SC) of one of a pair of sounds to make it twice as bright as the other, so as to build a perceptual scale. The ratio of SC required to double brightness is a little less than 2 and decreases as the SC of the tones increases. For these tones, the ratio of brightness is statistically different from the ratio of sharpness calculated from published models.