期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2018
卷号：115
期号：1
页码：216-221
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1713206115
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Musical chords are combinations of two or more tones played together. While many different chords are used in music, some are heard as more attractive (consonant) than others. We have previously suggested that, for reasons of biological advantage, human tonal preferences can be understood in terms of the spectral similarity of tone combinations to harmonic human vocalizations. Using the chromatic scale, we tested this theory further by assessing the perceived consonance of all possible dyads, triads, and tetrads within a single octave. Our results show that the consonance of chords is predicted by their relative similarity to voiced speech sounds. These observations support the hypothesis that the relative attraction of musical tone combinations is due, at least in part, to the biological advantages that accrue from recognizing and responding to conspecific vocal stimuli.
