An Experiment in the Aesthetic Value of Sonified Mathematical Objects
- Degree Grantor:
- University of California, Santa Barbara. Media Arts and Technology
- Degree Supervisor:
- Curtis Roads
- Place of Publication:
- [Santa Barbara, Calif.]
- Publisher:
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Creation Date:
- 2013
- Issued Date:
- 2013
- Topics:
- Music and Aesthetics
- Keywords:
- Music,
Sonification,
Experiment,
Aesthetics,
Fibonacci, and
Golden ratio - Genres:
- Online resources and Dissertations, Academic
- Dissertation:
- Ph.D.--University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013
- Description:
A central problem in the field of aesthetics is the determination of what we find to be beautiful and why. Since the work of Adolf Zeising and Gustav Theodor Fechner in the mid-nineteenth century, there has been great research interest in determining the potential aesthetic merits of the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence. A review of the literature shows that a large body of research exists that studies their aesthetic value in the visual domain. No research has yet been carried out, however, in an attempt to determine their potential merits in the audio domain. This has been due in part to a lack of suitable example stimuli for scientific testing. This dissertation takes the first step in bridging this research gap, guided by the question: Do sonifications of mathematical objects closely related to FS and GR hold some special aesthetic significance or advantage over less closely related sonified mathematical objects? In the most comprehensive survey of its kind, works in which composers are known to have utilized the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers are shown to be unsuitable for our research purposes, as they were never intended for such research. Methods are then outlined for creating sonifications that can function as the necessary simple example stimuli in experiments. After a presentation of various sonifications related to the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence, the methodology and results of a novel experiment involving 170 participants are then detailed. In this experiment, subjects were asked to compare the relative aesthetic value of pairs of sonifications of mathematical objects. In each pair, one of the mathematical objects was closely related to the Fibonacci sequence whereas the other was not. The evidence gathered suggests that the utilization of the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence could have potentially negative effects on the aesthetic value of sonifications.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (256 pages)
- Format:
- Text
- Collection(s):
- UCSB electronic theses and dissertations
- Other Versions:
- http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3602163
- ARK:
- ark:/48907/f3f18wqc
- ISBN:
- 9781303539794
- Catalog System Number:
- 990040924970203776
- Copyright:
- Casey Mongoven, 2013
- Rights:
In Copyright
- Copyright Holder:
- Casey Mongoven
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