Purrfect Pitch: Exploring Pitch Interval Learning through an Audio-Haptic Interface

Abstract

We introduce Purrfect Pitch, a system consisting of a wearable haptic device and a custom-designed learning interface for musical ear training. We focus on the ability to identify pitch intervals (sequences of two musical notes), a perceptually ambiguous task that usually requires rote training. With our system, users hear two tones while simultaneously receiving two corresponding vibrotactile stimuli on the back. Providing haptic feedback on the back makes the auditory distance between tones salient, and the back-worn design is comfortable and unobtrusive. During training, users receive multi-sensory feedback from our system and input their guessed interval value on our web-based learning interface. Our study with 18 participants shows that our system enables novice learners to identify intervals more accurately and consistently than those who only received audio feedback, even after removing the haptic feedback. We also share further insights on designing a multisensory learning system.