Consonance

This project investigates the perceptual and cultural foundations of musical consonance. Using cross-cultural experiments and computational modelling, we disentangle the contributions of psychoacoustic mechanisms (such as roughness and harmonicity) from culturally learned preferences.

Related Publications

Frank, J., & Harrison, P. M. C. Modeling individual differences in chord pleasantness judgments Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2026)
Harrison, P. M. C., & MacConnachie, J. Consonance in the carillon Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (2024)
Marjieh, R., Harrison, P. M. C., Lee, H., Deligiannaki, F., & Jacoby, N. Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales Nature Communications (2024)