Similarity and preference judgments of musical stimuli

Two experiments were performed comparing similarity (technical‐structural) and preference personal‐affective) judgments of jazz improvizations (Experiment 1) and of classical, pop‐rock, and jazz music (Experiment 2). A multidimensional scaling paradigm (INDSCAL) was used for pairwise comparisons of the 12 musical pieces in each experiment. Each 2 minute piece was subdivided into 10 second segments in order to reduce fatigue or boredom and provide better sampling across comparison trials. In general, similarity dimensions reflected greater agreement among the subjects that did preference dimensions and were hierarchically ordered. The dominant dimensions for both similarity and preference judgments of jazz improvizations were: Tempo, Dominant Instrument (Horns‐guitar), and Articulation. The dominant dimensions for similarity judgments involving all three genres were: Classical‐Contemporary, Jazz‐Rock, and Tempo. The dominant dimensions for preference judments were: Rock‐Classical, Jazz‐Classical, and Tempo. In general, the preference judgments of musically sophisticated subjects were less constrained by salient dimensions.