Research On The Effect Of Sound Source Direction On The Perception Of Pitch Error Of Perfect Fifth Interval

Spatial orientation of sensory stimuli has an influence on human perception.Many previous studies focused on this effect on the auditory system,but no attention were paid to an aspect closely related to professional musicians:does the sound source direction affect their pitch error perception.The auditory training of professional musicians is usually implemented by one teacher on only one piano.A normally tuned piano can only provide auditory training in a single sound source direction while the pitch can not be flexibly adjusted.Therefore,this training method can provide an auditory training neither in multiple sound source directions,nor in identifying small pitch errors.In professional activities,musicians need good hearing not only in a single,but also in multiple sound source directions:they need the ability to notice and monitor pitch errors of sounds from different directions at the same time.Therefore,researchers should pay attention to the perception ability and training of musicians to small pitch errors in multiple sound source directions;However,in the existing research literature at home and abroad,there was no research on the perception of small pitch errors in multiple sound source directions by different types of musicians or music lovers.In this study,two experiments were designed and 24 subjects were recruited and divided into three groups.The researcher measured and compared the perception ability of different types of musicians and music lovers to the pitch error of a pure fifth interval"One-line A"and"One-line D"whose sound source direction was either"center"or"both sides".When the sound source direction is in the"center",both ears of the subjects can hear"A"and"D"at the same time;When the sound source direction is on"both sides",the subjects can only hear"A"in their left ear and"D"in their right ear.Experiment 1 included one task.The pure fifth interval was firstly played with accurate pitch,and then the same interval with or without pitch error.The subjects were asked to choose whether the second sound they heard was consistent with the accurate first sound.Experiment 2 contained two tasks,of which the first task was the same as experiment 1;The second task asked the subjects to judge the type of pitch error of the second sound they heard:whether there was a pitch error in the higher note A or the lower note D,and whether the error is sharp or flat.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:1^st conclusion:The influence of sound source direction on the perception of pitch error was extremely significant:the perception of pitch error with sound source on"both sides"in each group was extremely significantly weaker than that in"center",represented by lower accuracy,longer response time and higher corresponding 50%threshold（Fs>26.011,ps<0.001）.2^nd conclusion:The experimental process itself significantly improved the subjects’perception of pitch error:the accuracy of each group in task 1 of experiment 2 was significantly higher than that of the same task of experiment 1.Professional musicians and music lovers both had room for progress.During the experiment,they observed small pitch errors hundreds of times.Even if no feedback was provided,their perception of the pitch error was improved,represented by higher accuracy and lower corresponding 50%threshold（Fs>16.283,ps<0.001）.3^rd conclusion:There was a significant interaction between the sound source direction and the experimental condition classification of"sound 2 pitch error cents";There was a significant interaction between the sound source direction and the experimental condition classification of"either the higher note A or the lower note D of the sound 2 has a pitch error";There was a significant interaction between the sound source direction and the experimental condition classification of"either the interval of the sound 2 is widened or narrowed"（Fs>4.659,ps<0.044）.4^th conclusion:Although the average experimental performance of professional musicians was ahead of that of music lovers,the mean difference did not reach a statistical significance（Fs<2.729,ps>0.124）.5^th conclusion:There was no significant difference in the experimental performance between professional musicians of different majors（Fs<4.197,ps>0.473）.The above conclusions enlightened the researcher of this study:it is worth popularizing the auditory training of multiple sound source direction and of identifying small pitch errors,which may embody significant practical value in the field of teaching.