Learning to discriminate new timbres

Abstract

The present study explored whether timbre discrimination could be honed through perceptual exposure training. A timbre continuum that blended the timbres of an oboe and a trumpet was constructed to produce novel timbres to which participants had no previous exposure. Participants' baseline sensitivity (d’) in discriminating tones comprising these novel timbres were compared to their sensitivity after training. In Experiments 1 and 2, training involved exposure to a tone discrimination task, with some participants getting feedback about the accuracy of their responses and other participants getting no feedback. Although there was no improvement with initially sub-threshold timbral variation regardless of whether there was feedback or not after each exposure, exposure with feedback did improve discrimination with initially above-threshold timbral variation. Experiment 3 showed that this improved timbre discrimination via exposure with feedback also helped segregate a melody from a set of jumbled tones, and, moreover, generalized to the segregation of a new melody played in the trained timbre. The results are discussed within the framework of perceptual learning.