Quantitative examination and mathematical modeling of categoricity in rhythm perception and its engineering applications.

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K17668
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science; Kansei informatics
• Research Institution: Kyushu University (2020-2021); The University of Tokyo (2017-2019)
• Principal Investigator: Sawai Ken-ichi 九州大学, 芸術工学研究院, 助教 (10754715)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 恒常法 / 心理物理学 / カテゴリー知覚

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In color and sound perception, participants seem to perceive stimuli in categories, and this phenomenon is called categorical perception. In this study, we developed a psychometric method to investigate whether the perception of rhythm patterns is categorical perception. This method is an extension of the constant method of stimuli, which is widely used to examine the subjective magnitude of a stimulus. Our method succeeded in improving some of the shortcomings of the constant method of stimuli. On the other hand, while the ability to examine categoricity was confirmed to be effective in simulations, it was found to be difficult to obtain significant results with a realistic number of experimental participants.

Free Research Field

数理工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で開発した心理実験手法は，結果の再現性の高さなどの既存の恒常法の長所を活かしつつ，短所である予備実験に掛かる負担について軽減するなどの改良を実現している．そのため，この手法は長く使われてきた実験手法を代替し得るというインパクトがある．また，実験実施の負担の軽減のほかに，設定すべき実験パラメータが少ないという特徴もあるため，専門外の人が人の主観量を調べることのハードルを下げることができる．