For the past 140 years, numerous studies have been conducted to examine minimum durations of samples needed for the recognition of acoustic parameters such as pitch, timbre or vocal phonemes. Recent studies in this field are often based on short clips (plinks) of popular songs, using target variables such as titles and interpreters. These studies provide strong evidence that a wide range of intra- and extramusical information can be identified above chance level for stimuli lasting much shorter than a second. Nevertheless, a review of precedent studies revealed a heterogeneity in stimulus generation processes that could have influenced overall recognition rates. As a piece of music unfolds in time, its timbral structure is subject to a variety of changes. We assume that the position of stimulus extraction, therefore, could influence the outcomes of a subsequent recognition task, for instance. In this study, we offer a systematic and objective stimulus extraction procedure that might help to control for (a) a possible confounding of stimulus duration and timbre (caused by the extraction of stimulus sets of various length from different song positions), (b) possible confoundings of song section and timbre (caused by the comparison of stimulus sets from divergent song sections), and (c) the suspected influence of subjective criteria on extract selection (caused by the non-randomized selection of extract positions). As an alternative approach, the suggested Matryoshka principle produces randomized sets of nested stimuli controlled for song position and objective selection. Each set represents an individual section and consists of five short excerpts, cut from each other in decreasing duration. Correlation analyses confirmed that these sets prove to be stable in terms of their mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients, the so-called “psycho-acoustic fingerprint” of a sound. Based on the software Random Plink Generator, the suggested procedure can help to contribute to an objective selection of stimuli in future plink research.

中文翻译：

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片段中的一个片段：建立Matryoshka原理以构造非常短的音乐刺激（链接）

在过去的140年中，进行了许多研究，以检查识别音高，音调或人声音素所需的最小采样持续时间。该领域的最新研究通常基于流行歌曲的短片（链接），并使用诸如标题和解释器之类的目标变量。这些研究提供了有力的证据，表明在高于机会水平的刺激下，比持续时间短得多的一秒内，可以识别出范围广泛的肌内和肌外信息。然而，对先例研究的回顾表明，刺激产生过程的异质性可能会影响总体识别率。随着音乐的不断发展，其音色结构会发生各种变化。因此，我们假设刺激提取的位置 例如，可能会影响后续识别任务的结果。在这项研究中，我们提供了系统和客观的刺激提取程序，可能有助于控制（a）刺激持续时间和音色的可能混淆（由从不同歌曲位置提取各种长度的刺激集引起），（b）歌曲部分和音色的可能混淆（通过比较不同歌曲部分的刺激集而引起），以及（c）主观标准对提取物选择的怀疑影响（由提取物位置的非随机选择引起）。作为一种替代方法，建议的Matryoshka原理可生成随机控制的嵌套刺激集，以控制歌曲位置和目标选择。每一组代表一个单独的部分，由五个简短的摘录组成，在减少持续时间方面彼此减少。相关分析证实，这些集合在其梅尔频率倒谱系数（即声音的所谓“心理声学指纹”）方面被证明是稳定的。基于随机Plink生成器软件，建议的过程可有助于为将来的Plink研究中的刺激目标选择做出贡献。