timbre, sampling and visuals

Musical timbre was arguably one of the most developed features during the last century. The study of musical timbre has led to a new understanding of human perception.
On a recent study, Bailes (2006) has studied the role of timbre in musical imagery. In the pilot experiment, music students had to do timbre discrimination tasks by hearing a melody in which each note was played by a different set of sampled orchestral instruments. However, nine of the respondents later said that the use of sampled sounds was a disadvantage for them in order to answer correctly. As Bailes states, "the recognition and identification of the stimulus sounds were particularly important for three participants who explained that they would tend to visualise an instrument or instrumentalist when imaging a timbre".
This suggests that the use of sampled sounds can tend to vanish the image of someone or something being played. This is particularly interesting, as the use of samples is a very popular technique among musicians nowadays. It may be possible that some musical styles which use samples frequently produce to listeners the feeling that the artist and/or the instrument is absent. Therefore, some people consider that visual external stimuli, such as the use of lights and video performances may serve as a perceptual substitute.
Sampling somehow exists since 1948, when composer and theorist Pierre Schaeffer performed his works on tape manipulation.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Schaeffer
Bailes, Freya: "Timbre as an Elusive Component of Imagery for Music", 2006.