Abstract
Perceptual similarity has been studied by researchers for a long time. Here I report two experiments on how auditory similarity is affected by the frequency components in pairs of sounds. In Experiment One, subjects heard two one-second-long tones in order and decided if they were the same or not. Results showed that subjects did better when the dominant frequency was relatively high. I propose that a larger number of cycles benefited subjects' decision-making process. In Experiment Two, subjects listened to two sequential tones that lasted five cycles and judged whether they were the same or not. Contrary to Experiment One, subjects' accuracy was higher under lower dominant frequency. I infer that longer presentation time in lower frequency trials helped subjects establish a better memory. If subjects went through similar memory interference and decay, then better-formed memory should result in higher accuracy.