Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations

Where does consonance collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
consonance2 CONSTRUCTSMusic acousticsPLOMP · TONAL CONSONANCEPsychologyFESTINGER · COGNITION

Spokes are fields; dashed arcs are shared lineage. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

1877Music acoustics1957Psychology
2026

Drag to watch the word get claimed. Each field appears at the publication date of the earliest source cited for it. Tap a year to see which.

Music acoustics

the smooth, stable sound of certain simultaneous tones

In music acoustics, consonance is the perceived pleasantness and stability of tones sounded together, opposed to dissonance. Helmholtz, in On the Sensations of Tone (1877), grounded it in the beating and roughness between the partials of the combined tones, and Plomp and Levelt (1965) tied the degree of consonance to whether partials fall within a critical bandwidth. This referent is a property of a sound; it contrasts sharply with cognitive consonance in psychology, which is a property of a person's beliefs.[1][2]

Unit
One interval or chord, rated for consonance
Recovery means
Play two or more tones together and judge their smoothness/stability, or compute partial spacing against critical bandwidth.
Measured by
Behavioral pleasantness ratings and acoustic roughness models based on critical-band overlap of partials.

Psychology

the comfortable state when a person's beliefs and acts agree

In Festinger's A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), consonance is the state of agreement among a person's cognitions, the absence of the conflict that drives attitude change. People are held to be motivated toward consonance and away from dissonance. Here consonance is a property of a mind's belief set, not of a sound, distinguishing it from the acoustic meaning.[3]

Unit
One pair of cognitions, consonant or dissonant
Recovery means
Identify two cognitions a person holds and check whether one follows from, rather than contradicts, the other.
Measured by
Inferred from attitude/behavior change and self-report discomfort after induced inconsistency.

Next

Run it through the Collider, or take the citations with you.

See how consonance sits against neighbouring constructs in the Collider, or export every reference on this page in one click.

Open in ColliderExport BibTeXReport this collision

Nearby collisions

dissonance3 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, three constructsroughness4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructstonal consonance1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone construct

References

  1. Helmholtz, H. von. (1954). On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music (A. J. Ellis, Trans.). Dover. (Original work published 1877) ISBN 9780486607535
  2. Plomp, R., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1965). Tonal consonance and critical bandwidth. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 38(4), 548–560. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1909741
  3. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804709118

Cited on this page?

Confirm your construct, or correct us.

If your work is cited behind one of these entries, you know better than we do whether we captured the meaning right. Confirm it, suggest an edit, or dispute it, and your name goes on the entry as an author who has checked it, linked to your ORCID.

Claim your construct