# Perception and cognition of musical timbre **Keywords:** Timbre, Music perception, Music cognition, Hearing, Psychophysics, Neuroscience **Abstract:** This chapter explains timbre as a perceptual property of a specific fused auditory event. Timbre refers to a complex set of auditory attributes that carry musical qualities, collectively contribute to sound source recognition and identification, and complement other auditory attributes of music. Psychophysics of timbre and covariance with other musical parameters will be discussed. This chapter will also explore absolute and relative perception of timbre, memory for timbre, and timbre as a structuring force in music perception. This chapter also includes discussion of current and future applications of timbre research for music information retrieval and musical machine learning. **Authors:** [[McAdams]]