**Timbre Perception Test (TPT)**
Citation: *Lee, H., & Müllensiefen, D. (2020). The Timbre Perception Test (TPT): A new interactive musical assessment tool to measure timbre perception ability. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02058-3*
The Timbre Perception Test (TPT) software was developed by Harin Lee and Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen (2020). TPT tests a listener’s timbre perception ability and makes assessment based on the listener’s ability to reproduce the heard auditory stimulus varying in their three salient features of timbre: log attack time, spectral flux, and spectral centroid.
[ *Experiment data archived [here][1]* ]
**Usage**
The software is programmed in the MaxMSP environment and runs as a standalone application on macOS and Windows. This software is openly available for personal and research use. If you wish to manipulate the auditory parameters or make any changes to the testing, please consult Harin ( mu301hl@gold.ac.uk ) for access to the original max patch and by signing an agreement form.
**For mac users*
Please open the application by right-clicking the application and then manually selecting *open*. If you double-click, it may come up with an error stating that the application is developed by an unidentified developer.
**Testing**
When opening the application, you will see the following launch screen.
![enter image description here][2]
Instruction bubble will guide you through the test. At the end of testing session, a pop-up window will appear.
*Example:*
46, "Blue sound count" 17;
47, "Yellow sound count" 40;
1, 42 45 3 2;
2, 6 10 2 5;
3, 60 70 1 1;
4, 24 30 1 1;
[…]
The first two lines indicate the total number of stimulus (blue sound) and reproduction (yellow sound) playbacks. From 3rd line, participant’s performance is recorded with numbers presented in respective order:
1. trial number
2. target value (i.e. stimulus slider position)
3. participant's slider position (default at ’50’)
4. number of stimulus tone playbacks
5. number of reproduction tone playbacks
**Interpreting Results**
Each testing block consists of a trial item (not recorded), 5 match items, and 10 memory items (*memory items are excluded in the TPT short-version*). The lines can be interpreted as follows:
1 - 5 : Envelope (match)
6 - 15 : Envelope (memory)
16 - 20 : Spectral Flux (match)
21 - 30 : Spectral Flux (memory)
31 - 35 : Spectral Centroid (match)
36 - 45 : Spectral Centroid (memory)
When testing with TPT short-version, participant scoring can follow the [TPT scoring table][3] (*also documented in Appendix C of the paper*) by converting participant’s slider values into rank-ordered bin numbers (1 being the worst and 6 being the best).
**Enquiries**
Please do not hesitate to contact mu301hl@gold.ac.uk for any enquiries.
[1]: https://osf.io/mkj8f/
[2]: https://files.osf.io/v1/resources/9c8qz/providers/osfstorage/5ed4634caeeb6d03f208489f?mode=render
[3]: https://osf.io/pxncz/
