# Four Distinctions for the Auditory Wastebasket of Timbre **Keywords:** timbre perception, music cognition, psychoacoustics, conceptual framework, definitions **Opening (not a real abstract):** If there is one thing about timbre that researchers in psychoacoustics and music psychology agree on, it is the claim that it is a poorly understood auditory attribute. One facet of this commonplace conception is that it is not only the complexity of the subject matter that complicates research, but also that timbre is hard to define (cf., Krumhansl, 1989). Perhaps for lack of a better alternative, one can observe a curious habit in introductory sections of articles on timbre, namely to cite a definition from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and to elaborate on its shortcomings. For the sake of completeness (and tradition!) we recall: “Timbre. That attribute of auditory sensation which enables a listener to judge that two nonidentical sounds, similarly presented and having the same loudness and pitch, are dissimilar [sic]. NOTE-Timbre **Authors:** [[Siedenburg and McAdams]]