Subject: Loudness of complex tones From: at <reppHASKINS.YALE.EDU> Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 11:02:04 -0500Dear colleagues: I am just completing a small experiment that demonstrates that lower-pitched piano tones are perceived as louder than higher-pitched tones matched for peak rms sound level. (The opposite would be true for pure tones in the same fundamental frequency range, below 1000 Hz.) I suspect that is so because of the larger number of harmonics and energy in a larger number of critical bands when the fundamental frequency is low rather than high. I am not very up-to-date on the literature concerning loudness perception and have encountered hardly any papers on the loudness of complex tones, on realistic instrument tones in particular. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is my result obvious from what is known about the loudness of complex harmonic tones? Has anyone predicted or shown that such tones get louder as you lower their fundamental? Many thanks in advance. Bruno H. Repp Haskins Laboratories