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PNAS

Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics

Overview of attention for article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 2014
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (98th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (89th percentile)

Mentioned by

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9 news outlets
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25 X users
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4 Facebook pages
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2 Wikipedia pages

Citations

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32 Dimensions

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mendeley
65 Mendeley
Title
Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical dynamics
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 2014
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1319976111
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jukka Pätynen, Sakari Tervo, Philip W. Robinson, Tapio Lokki

Abstract

One of the most thrilling cultural experiences is to hear live symphony-orchestra music build up from a whispering passage to a monumental fortissimo. The impact of such a crescendo has been thought to depend only on the musicians' skill, but here we show that interactions between the concert-hall acoustics and listeners' hearing also play a major role in musical dynamics. These interactions contribute to the shoebox-type concert hall's established success, but little prior research has been devoted to dynamic expression in this three-part transmission chain as a complete system. More forceful orchestral playing disproportionately excites high frequency harmonics more than those near the note's fundamental. This effect results in not only more sound energy, but also a different tone color. The concert hall transmits this sound, and the room geometry defines from which directions acoustic reflections arrive at the listener. Binaural directional hearing emphasizes high frequencies more when sound arrives from the sides of the head rather than from the median plane. Simultaneously, these same frequencies are emphasized by higher orchestral-playing dynamics. When the room geometry provides reflections from these directions, the perceived dynamic range is enhanced. Current room-acoustic evaluation methods assume linear behavior and thus neglect this effect. The hypothesis presented here is that the auditory excitation by reflections is emphasized with an orchestra forte most in concert halls with strong lateral reflections. The enhanced dynamic range provides an explanation for the success of rectangularly shaped concert-hall geometry.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 25 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 65 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 2 3%
Japan 1 2%
Germany 1 2%
Unknown 61 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 20%
Student > Master 12 18%
Researcher 11 17%
Professor 5 8%
Student > Bachelor 5 8%
Other 13 20%
Unknown 6 9%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Engineering 19 29%
Physics and Astronomy 7 11%
Psychology 7 11%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 6 9%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 6%
Other 13 20%
Unknown 9 14%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 95. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 November 2018.
All research outputs
#434,157
of 25,083,571 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#7,765
of 102,341 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,747
of 228,117 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#106
of 1,000 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,083,571 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 102,341 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 39.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 228,117 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 1,000 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.