Psychoacoustic and experiential determinants of tonal consonance

Theories of tonal consonance have primarily sought to explain consonance of chords smaller than the octave drawn from the conventional semitone musical scale. Critical evaluation of such theories requires a new body of data. The present study reports consonance ratings for two-tone chords drawn from a quartertone scale and for chords larger than an octave as well as for the chords normally studied. Subjects were drawn from undergraduate psychology courses without preselection for musical aptitude or background. The results were compared with predictions derived from several current theories: psychoacoustic models, in which consonance is attributed to a lack of dissonance or harshsounding pairs of components, and a psychological complexity model which relates consonance to the perceived simplicity of the stimulus. The latter theory, which makes allowance for the unfamiliarity of quartertone chords and for the equivalence of extra-octave and within-octave chords, provided the best qualitative account of the data. It was concluded that a valid theory of tonal consonance must acknowledge the effects of musical experience on musical judgment.