Perceptual similarity between piano notes: Simulations with a template-based perception model

TL;DR

This study uses a physiologically inspired auditory model with a new central processor to simulate perceptual similarity between complex piano sounds, aligning well with experimental data and providing insights into frequency-based response weighting.

Contribution

The paper introduces a central processing stage to an existing auditory model for simulating complex sound similarity, validated against experimental data.

Findings

Simulations showed moderate to high correlation with experimental similarity data.

The model's response weighting varies with frequency, influenced by background noise.

The developed model enhances understanding of perceptual similarity in complex sounds.

Abstract

In this paper the auditory model developed by Dau et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 2892-2905 (1997)] was used to simulate the perceptual similarity between complex sounds. For this purpose, a central processor stage was developed and attached as a back-end module to the auditory model. As complex sounds, a set of recordings of one note played on seven different pianos was used, whose similarity has been recently measured by Osses et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 146, 1024-1035 (2019)] using a 3-AFC discrimination task in noise. The auditory model has several processing stages that are to a greater or lesser extent inspired by physiological aspects of the human normal-hearing system. A set of configurable parameters in each stage affects directly the sound (internal) representations that are further processed in the developed central processor. Therefore, a comprehensive review of the model parameters is given, indicating the configuration we chose. This includes an in-depth description of the auditory adaptation stage, the adaptation loops. Simulations of the similarity task were compared with (1) existing experimental data, where they had a moderate to high correlation, and with (2) simulations using an alternative but similar background noise to that of the experiments, which were used to obtain further information about how the participants' responses were weighted as a function of frequency.