Cross-cultural aspects of perceptual features in K-pop: A pilot study comparing Chinese and Swedish listeners

In previous studies it has been shown that perceptual features can be used as an intermediate representation in music processing to model higher-level semantic descriptions. In this pilot study, we focused on the cross-cultural aspect of such perceptual features, by asking both Chinese and Swedish listeners to rate a set of K-Pop samples using a web-based questionnaire. The music samples were selected from a larger set, previously rated in terms of different emotion labels. The selection procedure of the subset was carefully designed to maximize both the variation of emotion and genre. The listeners rated eight perceptual features: dissonance, speed, rhythmic complexity, rhythmic clarity, articulation, harmonic complexity, modality, and pitch. The results indicated a small but significant difference in the two groups, regarding the average speed and rhythmic complexity. In particular the perceived speed of hip hop was different for the two groups. We discuss the overall consistency of the ratings using this methodology in relation to the interface, selection and number of subjects.