Some Effects of Continous Tempo and Pitch Transformations in Perceived Pleasantness of Listening to a Musical Sound File

Abstract

Physiological changes, i.e., changes in the heart rate and its variability, respiratory patterns etc., are induced by listening to mu- sic. Both the low-level acoustic features of the sound and the per- ceived pleasantness of the music contribute to the type and strength of the physiological changes. Thus, for studying the effects of the pleasantness, it would be important to keep the low-level acoustic features as similar as possible in the sound samples. In this project we explored the effects of continuous tempo and pitch transformations in perceived pleasantness of listening to a musical sound file. Subjects evaluated pleasantness accord- ing to seven step Likert scale in which one is the most unpleasant and seven is the most pleasant. According to subjects’ judgment the changes in tempo affects less to perceived pleasantness than changes in pitch.