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Abstract

To compare two common measures of overall effect in music, we assessed listeners' perceptions of musical intensity in nine excerpts of orchestral music using two assessment procedures: (1) recording subjects' moment-to-moment responses as they listened to each excerpt and then averaging each subjects ratings to obtain a measure of overall intensity, and (2) recording subjects' post hoc ratings of intensity at the conclusion of each excerpt. The results illustrate the nonequivalence of these two measures of overall effect. Internal consistency was high for both measures, but the post hoc ratings were generally higher than mean ratings in both between- and within-subject comparisons. The magnitude of the differences between the two measures varied depending upon the nature of the changes in each stimulus. The results obtained in this investigation are nearly identical to those obtained by Brittin and Duke (1997a, 1997b) and suggest that it is inadvisable to interpret arithmetic means of momentary responses as indicators of subjects' perceptions of overall effect.

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Summarizing Listener Perceptions over Time

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