Perception and harmonic analysis of musical auditory-image

Based on the synesthesia between perceptions of auditory and visual, the ‘auditory-image' is defined as the perceived figures by people who are hearing the musical tone from the point of association. The auditory pressure level of music signals are set to the same before the subjective experiment. Single tones and intervals played by three kinds of the Chinese instruments are chosen to carry out the perception experiment of auditory-image and the evaluation of harmony. According to visual aesthetic rules, the relationships between acoustic harmony and perception of musical auditory-image are found. The results of experiment and analysis show that the perception of musical auditory-images has regularities. Perceptive auditory-images and evaluation of harmony are related to each other. A single tone is usually perceived as one figure. The auditory-image of interval is the combination of two figures which correspond to two perceived tones respectively. There are four relationships between the acoustic harmony and the perception of musical auditory-images: uniform, proportion, symmetry and contrast fusion.