Deutsch's scale illusion

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Discovered by Diana Deutsch in 1973, Deutsch's scale illusion is an auditory illusion produced by simultaneous ascending and descending major scales beginning in separate stereo channels with each successive note being switched to the opposite channel. With the left channel: C'-D-A-F--A-D-C'; and the right: C-B-E-G-E-B-C; the ear hears both: C'-B-A-G--A-B-C'; and: C-D-E-F--E-D-C. Two complex patterns are turned into two much simpler patterns. Using headphones, right handers tend to hear the higher melody on the right and the lower melody on the left; however, left handers, as a group, do not show this tendency.

Deutsch's Scale Illusion

[edit] Audio

Sound sample

The above example, played first a channel at a time, then simultaneously.

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[edit] References

Deutsch, D. (1974). "An illusion with musical scales". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 56: s25. doi:10.1121/1.1914084. Abstract
Deutsch, D. (1975). "Two-channel listening to musical scales". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 57: 1156-1160. doi:10.1121/1.380573. PMID 1127169.
Deutsch, D. (1975). "Musical Illusions". Scientific American 233: 92-104.
Deutsch, D. (1979). "Binaural integration of melodic patterns". Perception and Psychophysics 25: 399-405. PMID 461100.
Deutsch, D. (1985). "Dichotic listening to melodic patterns, and its relationship to hemispheric specialization of function". Music Perception 3: 1-28.
Deutsch, D. (1987). "Illusions for stereo headphones". Audio Magazine: 36-48.
Deutsch, D. (1999). "Grouping mechanisms in music", in D. Deutsch (Ed.): The psychology of music, 2nd Edition. San Diego: Academic Press, 299-348. ISBN 0-12-213565-2.
Radvansky GA, Hartmann WM, Rakerd B (1992). "Structural alterations of an ambiguous musical figure: the scale illusion revisited". Perception & Psychophysics 52 (3): 256-62. PMID 1408637.