Affective priming effects of musical sounds on the processing of word meaning - Sound examples and experimental design


Design of the affective priming paradigm. Chords are used as primes and words as targets. To test whether certain musical features are capable of conveying meaning information, chords are varied along affective dimensions of the musical feature under investigation (Experiment 1: consonance / dissonance; Experiment 2: major / minor; Experiment 3: timbre).

Click on the links for sound examples:

Experiment 1 (consonance / dissonance)
Experiment 1 pleasant (rather consonant) chord
Experiment 1 unpleasant (dissonant) chord

Experiment 2 (mode)
Experiment 2 happy chord
Experiment 2 sad chord

Experiment 3 (timbre)
Experiment 3 chord with
pleasant timbre
Experiment 3 
chord with
unpleasant timbre