We have produced several sets of unique sounds for experiments which you might like to hear.

These are some recent examples:

Topic/Paper
Link to sounds or movies

Reviewing the definition of timbre as it pertains to the perception of speech and musical sounds - ISH 2009

  • R.D. Patterson, T.C. Walters, J.J.M. Monaghan and E. Gaudrain (2009). ISH 2009, Salamanca.

Pitch and size melodies

Seperating pitch chroma and pitch height - the Helix Circle

The Helix Circle Sound

Pitch chroma and Pitch Height

Phonology in the human brain

  • We have developed a new class of stimuli to attempt to locate the first stage of speech specific processing in the human auditory system. The technique involves contrasting the BOLD response of damped vowels and musical rain.
 Damped Vowels and Musical Rain
  • We will eventually extend this research to a range of vowel sounds in which the speech likeness varies from natural to unrecognisable.
 A range of vowel sounds
  • Roy Patterson, Stefan Uppenkamp and collaborators; Norris, D., Marslen-Wilson, W., Johnsrude, I., and Williams, E.

Pitch and melody in the human brain

  • Patterson, R. D., Uppenkamp, S., Johnsrude, I., and Griffiths, T. D. (2002). The processing of temporal pitch and melody information in auditory cortex, Neuron, 36, 767-776.
 Regular Interval Sounds (RIS)

The lower limit of melodic pitch

  • Pressnitzer, D., Patterson, R. D., and Krumbholz, K. (2001). "The lower limit of melodic pitch," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 109, 2074-2084.
  • Krumbholz, K., Patterson, R.D. and Pressnitzer, D. (2000). "The lower limit of pitch as determined by rate discrimination," J Acoust Soc Am 108, 1170-1180.
Auditory Images of click trains

Scaling speech

  • This set of stimuli is designed to show how we can recognise vowels across a range of speakers. David Smith and Roy Patterson
  • An analysis of Peterson and Barney's vowel formant data to investigate the evidence for scaling in human vowels. Richard Turner and Roy Patterson
  • Database of CV and VC syllables with orthogonal variation in pitch and vtl. Tim Ives and Roy Patterson

Scaled vowels

Peterson and Barney Data

Size Pitch Speech Demo (click to play, or right-click and "save as" to download)

Scaling Music

  • Musical instrument sounds scaled in pulse rate and resonance scale. Ralph van Dinther and Roy Patterson

Scaled Music