Scaling the Pleasant Sounds (Sensorial Consonants) of 17 Environmental Sounds and Investigation of the Relevant Hearing Parameters.

In order to investigate universal harmony, the sensorial consonance, two procedures were carried out. In the first investigation 17 chosen test sounds were chosen with regard to their harmony and compared pair-wise. In the second investigation the harmony was estimated through test-sounds. These test-sounds were from the following: -vacuum cleaner, coffee grinder, telephone bell, typewriter, running water-tap, a drill, a circular saw, a car, motor-bike, aeroplane, a woman's voice, a man's voice, a piece of music, a chord, bell noise, amplitude-modulated sinusoidal tone, white noise, a pure tone. In both experiments all the sound tests were performed at a loudness level of 78 phons. In both investigations the harmony gained of the voice was universally good: The musical accord would be judged as sounding more pleasant, the noise of the circular saw as less pleasant. An investigation of the connection between a pleasant sound and the fundamental hearing sensation gave a high coordination between the experimentally ascertained pleasant sound value and a combination from estimated values of the sensations o roughness, sharpness an tonality. Roughness and sharpness influence melody in the negative sense while tonality represents a positive influence.