3 ms·

"bass, baritone, tenor or soprano", that's only four categories, that's much less than 10. And I would guess that timbre will play in here as well, since the hu

"bass, baritone, tenor or soprano", that's only four categories, that's much less than 10. And I would guess that timbre will play in here as well, since the human voice is pretty restricted. A bass is not just a frequency shifted soprano. Play a note and ask someone to reproduce it after ten seconds or so. How close would people come? Then show them a card with a certain pure colour and then ask them to reproduce that with a hue slider. Don't you think people would come much closer with the colours? Don't confuse language and perception, we are not talking about labels such as "cyan" here, that's not directly relevant.

watwut 5y ago
People will fail the pure color test and that is all there is to it. They will know it was light blue, but won't be able to choose correct light blue. Nad they will sux even more with mixed non-primary colors. Reproducing visual properties is much harder then you think.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  There is no "fail", it's just a matter of how many colours one can distinguish, vs how many absolute tone frequencies.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Infinite amount of both. But there is also issue of remembering which is not as easy as people assume and of comparing. And of light conditions and context affecting your perception. And so on.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Infinite? Not at all, we’re talking about identifying absolute frequencies here, not just telling them apart. For sound I’d say it’s less than five, for colour perhaps a dozen.
sfink 5y ago
Heh. Personal anecdote: at 10 seconds I would do as you expect, but if the gap were longer I would do much better with sound. I discovered relatively recently that I simply cannot remember colors. My vision is fine, and my short-term memory for colors is also fine. If I'm in a room and you ask me to close my eyes and say what color the walls are, I can do it. But if you ask me the color of the wall of my bedroom, where I go every night, then I will only be able to tell you if we recently painted it and verbally discussed paint colors. (I think it's a shade of blue? Or maybe green. Possibly gray. My family likes to pester me with this question, so you'd think I would memorize the answer at some point, but I haven't.) I'm kind of curious how common this is. But since I lived several decades without noticing it in myself, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't very well recognized.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
The difference between red and blue is half an octave in frequency. So 4 tones is about right.
Dylan16807 5y ago
I'm pretty sure I'd do a lot better at reproducing the note.

watwut 5y ago

People will fail the pure color test and that is all there is to it. They will know it was light blue, but won't be able to choose correct light blue. Nad they will sux even more with mixed non-primary colors. Reproducing visual properties is much harder then you think.

Grustaf 5y ago
There is no "fail", it's just a matter of how many colours one can distinguish, vs how many absolute tone frequencies.
- watwut 5y ago
  Infinite amount of both. But there is also issue of remembering which is not as easy as people assume and of comparing. And of light conditions and context affecting your perception. And so on.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Infinite? Not at all, we’re talking about identifying absolute frequencies here, not just telling them apart. For sound I’d say it’s less than five, for colour perhaps a dozen.

sfink 5y ago

Heh. Personal anecdote: at 10 seconds I would do as you expect, but if the gap were longer I would do much better with sound. I discovered relatively recently that I simply cannot remember colors. My vision is fine, and my short-term memory for colors is also fine. If I'm in a room and you ask me to close my eyes and say what color the walls are, I can do it. But if you ask me the color of the wall of my bedroom, where I go every night, then I will only be able to tell you if we recently painted it and verbally discussed paint colors. (I think it's a shade of blue? Or maybe green. Possibly gray. My family likes to pester me with this question, so you'd think I would memorize the answer at some point, but I haven't.) I'm kind of curious how common this is. But since I lived several decades without noticing it in myself, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't very well recognized.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

The difference between red and blue is half an octave in frequency. So 4 tones is about right.

Dylan16807 5y ago

I'm pretty sure I'd do a lot better at reproducing the note.