{"id":1018,"date":"2011-04-27T23:04:01","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T03:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/ltt\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2011-05-09T15:14:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T19:14:19","slug":"testing-aural-perception-through-audio-format-results-and-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/?p=1018","title":{"rendered":"Testing Aural Perception through Audio Format: Results and Conclusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\ufeff\ufeff\"Correct<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Source<\/p>\n

\"Correct<\/p>\n

Conclusions:<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the beginning of this investigation we sought to determine whether or not a person presented with two samples of music\u2013\u2013one primarily acoustic and the other primarily electric, and each played in random order in vinyl and MP3 format\u2013\u2013can accurately perceive differences in audio quality between music formats. Attempting to answer this question we tested ten male and ten female subjects, each of whom listened to samples of the Pixies\u2019 \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d and New Order\u2019s \u201cBlue Monday.\u201d Among the questions we considered during testing:<\/p>\n

1) Might males and females demonstrate different preferences in audio format?<\/p>\n

– Furthermore, would these differences be reflected when the genre of the music \t\u00a0 \t\u00a0 changes?<\/p>\n

2) Might males and females differ in accuracy regarding which source is which?<\/p>\n

– As with Question 1, might these differences be reflected when the genre of the \t\t\u00a0 music changes?<\/p>\n

3) Might perceived higher quality in a particular genre of music be associated with either \tthe LP (vinyl) or MP3 (computer) format?<\/p>\n

Upon completion of our testing we disaggregated the data into the following categories and sub-categories:<\/p>\n

# of people who determined the sound sources correctly for both songs: 7\/20.<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 4\/7.<\/p>\n

Females: 3\/7.<\/p>\n

# of people who determined the sound sources correctly for \u201cWhat Is My Mind?\u201d: 9\/20.<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 5\/9.<\/p>\n

Females: 4\/9.<\/p>\n

# of people who determined the sound sources correctly for \u201cBlue Monday\u201d: 14\/20.<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 8\/14.<\/p>\n

Females: 6\/14.<\/p>\n

# of people who preferred the LP for \u201cBlue Monday\u201d: 9\/20.<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 3\/9.<\/p>\n

Females: 6\/9.<\/p>\n

# of people who preferred the computer for \u201cBlue Monday\u201d: 10\/20.<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 7\/10.<\/p>\n

Females: 3\/10 (One female was indecisive).<\/p>\n

# of people who preferred the LP for \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d: 17\/20<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 8\/17.<\/p>\n

Females: 9\/17.<\/p>\n

# of people who preferred the computer for \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d: 3\/20<\/p>\n

Of those:<\/p>\n

Males: 2\/3.<\/p>\n

Females: 1\/3.<\/p>\n

From this data we can arrive at the following conclusions:<\/p>\n

In response to Question 1:<\/p>\n

– Of those who preferred the LP with \u201cBlue Monday,\u201d the majority (6\/9) were female. Of \tthose who preferred the computer, the majority (7\/10) were male.<\/p>\n

– Of those who preferred the LP with \u201cWhere Is My Mind,\u201d 9\/17 were female. Of those \twho preferred the computer, 2\/3 were male.<\/p>\n

– For \u201cBlue Monday,\u201d we can see a clear pattern of males preferring a digital format, \twhereas females prefer an analog format. For \u201cWhere Is My Mind,\u201d there is no decisive \tmargin in either direction. This seems to suggest that, for electronic music, format \tdifferences trigger more divided reactions among males and females than with acoustic \tmusic.<\/p>\n

In response to Questions 2 and 3:<\/p>\n

– Of those who correctly determined which source was the computer with \u201cBlue Monday,\u201d \tonly a slim majority were male (8\/14). Of those who correctly determined which source \twas the computer with \u201cWhere Is My Mind,\u201d the same was true (5\/9). This data, given \tour small sample size, is inconclusive, but could simply be telling us that males and \tfemales are equally adept at perceiving differences in sound quality.<\/p>\n

– Interestingly, 14 of the subjects were correct with \u201cBlue Monday,\u201d a 55.5% greater \tnumber than were correct for \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d The great difference in accuracy \tbetween the two songs is interesting when one considers that a very high 17\/20 people \tpreferred the LP for \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d while preferences were more split for \u201cBlue \tMonday.\u201d We believe this could reflect a bias among test subjects who believe higher \tquality in acoustic music such as \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d is linked to vinyl, while higher \tquality in electronic music such as \u201cBlue Monday\u201d is linked to MP3s. This potential bias \tis reflected in test subject comments about the particular qualities they noticed while \tlistening. For example, \u201cBlue Monday\u201d as an MP3 was frequently cited for better and \tmore distinct bass, while \u201cWhere Is My Mind?\u201d as an LP was noted for clearer \tinstrumentation.<\/p>\n

– Ultimately it seems that, aside from a statistically significant difference in preferences of format for electronic music, there is little discernable difference in audio perception or preference between males and females. Most apparently, though, it seems that people generally have less than a random coin toss\u2019 chance of guessing both sources in both audio samples correctly (7\/20 managed to achieve this). People are more able to do so for electronic music than for acoustic music, but because of the way in which the potential bias toward a specific format for a specific genre may have colored people\u2019s guesses, the electronic\/acoustic distinction regarding accuracy is inconclusive. On the whole, however, it seems that the human ear picks up on relatively few differences in MP3s and LPs, formats of definitively varied quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Results: \ufeff\ufeff Conclusions: At the beginning of this investigation we sought to determine whether or not a person presented with two samples of music\u2013\u2013one primarily acoustic and the other primarily electric, and each played in random order in vinyl and MP3 format\u2013\u2013can accurately perceive differences in audio quality between music formats. Attempting to answer this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5497],"tags":[5529,5532,5531,5533,809],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-10","tag-sound-quality","tag-analog","tag-digital","tag-mp3","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1321,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/ltt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}