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Published on: March 27, 2019
Music is a distinct perceptual category with subjective grounds
Pauline Larrouy-Maestri1, T Ata Aydin2, Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann2
1Max-Planck-Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. plm@ae.mpg.de.
Scientific Reports
|May 27, 2026
Summary
Western listeners consistently identify music across diverse genres, distinguishing it from other sounds. This suggests music is a stable perceptual construct, regardless of cultural origin or listener familiarity.
Area of Science:
- Auditory perception
- Cognitive psychology
- Music cognition
Background:
- Auditory environments require perceptual categorization.
- Western listeners consistently differentiate music from non-musical sounds.
- Cultural diversity in music exists, yet a common distinction is observed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the consistency of music identification by Western listeners.
- To examine how diverse auditory stimuli are categorized.
- To understand the perceptual basis for distinguishing music.
Main Methods:
- Presented a wide range of auditory stimuli (music from various origins, other sounds) to 735 Western participants.
- Conducted preregistered online experiments.
- Analyzed listener ratings and categorization patterns.
Main Results:
- Listeners showed high agreement in categorizing sounds.
- Three distinct categories emerged: music, not-music, and ambiguous.
- Culturally diverse music was evaluated similarly to familiar genres.
- Perceptual judgments (instrument recognition, melody detection, intentionality) clearly separated categories despite acoustic overlap.
Conclusions:
- 'Music' is a distinct and stable perceptual construct for Western listeners.
- Categorization is consistent across diverse musical and non-musical sounds.
- Perceptual features, not just acoustics, define music categorization.
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