Roughness in sound and vision

In three experiments the perceived roughness of visual and of auditory materials was investigated. In Experiment 1, the roughness of frequency-modulated tones was determined using a paired-comparison paradigm. It was found that using this paradigm similar results in comparison to literature were found. In Experiment 2, the perceived visual roughness of textures drawn from the CUReT database was determined. It was found that participants could systematically judge the roughness of the textures. In Experiment 3 the perceived pleasantness for the textures used in Experiment 2 was determined. It was found that two groups of participants could be distinguished. One group found rough textures unpleasant and smooth textures pleasant. The other group found rough textures pleasant and smooth textures unpleasant. Although for the latter groups the relation between relative roughness and perceived pleasantness was less strong.