Abstract

Tonal fusion is the tendency of listeners to perceive as one simple sound sounds composed of two different tones. According to Stumpf (1898), tonal fusion is correlated with sensory consonance: the higher the fusion, the higher the consonance of an interval. DeWitt and Crowder (1987) investigated Stumpf's hypothesis and found only a partial correlation between tonal fusion and consonance. Such lack of result might be due to the experimental procedure used by DeWitt and Crowder (1987). In the current experiment we purpose a new method for investigating tonal fusion. Although perfectible, our method seems more sensitive than the method used by DeWitt and Crowder (1987).