FREQUENCY RATIOS AND THE PERCEPTION OF TONE PATTERNS

We quantified the relative simplicity of frequency ratios and reanalyz ed data from several studies on the perception of simultaneous and seq uential tones. Simplicity of frequency ratios accounted for judgments of consonance and dissonance and for judgments of similarity across a wide range of tasks and listeners. It also accounted for the relative ease of discriminating tone patterns by musically experienced and inex perienced listeners. These findings confirm the generality of previous suggestions of perceptual processing advantages for pairs of tones re lated by simple frequency ratios.