Effects of mode, consonance, and register in visual and word-evaluation affective priming experiments

Abstract

An affective cross-modal priming paradigm was used in three experiments to test the effects of mode, consonance, and register in picture-evaluation and word-evaluation tasks. In experiment 1, participants heard major mode/minor mode, high-register/low-register chords (three tones) as primes and then they had to categorize a ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ word as a target. Participants evaluated target words faster if the words were preceded by a similarly valenced chord as opposed to affectively incongruent chord-word pairs. In experiments 2 and 3, target words were replaced by target affective pictures. In experiment 2, the primes were consonant/dissonant, high register/low-register chords. Register influenced picture evaluation whereas consonance was not effective for the affective priming. In experiment 3, the primes were major mode/minor mode, high-register/low-register chords. Register induced a faster recognition of targets while mode was not effective. Register is suggested to be a more powerful structural aspect of music than mode or consonance in influencing ongoing cognitive activities.