Automatic responses to musical intervals: Contrasts in acoustic roughness predict affective priming in Western listeners

Armitage, J.; Lahdelma, I.; Eerola, T.

doi:10.1121/10.0005623

Automatic responses to musical intervals: Contrasts in acoustic roughness predict affective priming in Western listeners

Armitage, J.; Lahdelma, I.; Eerola, T.

Authors

James Armitage james.e.armitage@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy

Dr Imre Lahdelma imre.d.lahdelma@durham.ac.uk
Lecturer

Professor Tuomas Eerola tuomas.eerola@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to determine which acoustic components of harmonic consonance and dissonance influence automatic responses in a simple cognitive task. In a series of affective priming experiments, eight pairs of musical intervals were used to measure the influence of acoustic roughness and harmonicity on response times in a word-classification task conducted online. Interval pairs that contrasted in roughness induced a greater degree of affective priming than pairs that did not contrast in terms of their roughness. Contrasts in harmonicity did not induce affective priming. A follow-up experiment used detuned intervals to create higher levels of roughness contrasts. However, the detuning did not lead to any further increase in the size of the priming effect. More detailed analysis suggests that the presence of priming in intervals is binary: in the negative primes that create congruency effects the intervals' fundamentals and overtones coincide within the same equivalent rectangular bandwidth (i.e., the minor and major seconds). Intervals that fall outside this equivalent rectangular bandwidth do not elicit priming effects, regardless of their dissonance or negative affect. The results are discussed in the context of recent developments in consonance/dissonance research and vocal similarity.

Citation

Armitage, J., Lahdelma, I., & Eerola, T. (2021). Automatic responses to musical intervals: Contrasts in acoustic roughness predict affective priming in Western listeners. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 150(1), Article 551. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0005623

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 24, 2021
Online Publication Date	Jul 22, 2021
Publication Date	2021
Deposit Date	Oct 4, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Jan 22, 2022
Journal	The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Print ISSN	0001-4966
Electronic ISSN	1520-8524
Publisher	Acoustical Society of America
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	150
Issue	1
Article Number	551
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0005623

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