Affective Priming

Music 451A Final Project

The Question

● Music often makes us ‘feel’ a certain way. Does this feeling have semantic meaning like the words ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ do?

● Does music convey semantic emotional content?

Previous Studies: 2004● Koelsch investigates language and music. Found an N400 for music primes

and semantically unrelated target words.

Previous Studies: 2012● Goerlich study showed negligible results that could be due to the motor

response during the N400: mean RT’s = 600ms ○ Subjects had to respond as quickly as possible with congruent or incongruent.

Experimental Design

GoalTo compare N400 between congruent and incongruent primes when a prime is given major or minor, and a probe of happy or sad emoji is displayed.

HypothesisIncongruent stimuli (major+sad face, minor+happy face) elicit an N400 for all listeners. This could indicate melodic priming has semantic emotional content.

MethodsParticipants: 5 University students aged 20-29, 3 Female and 2 Male, 3 Musician and 2 Non-musician.

Stimuli and Tasks: A melody lasting ~3.5 seconds played on piano (27 C Major and 27 possible corresponding C Minor melodies), followed by a happy (3 possible) or sad (3 possible) emoji for 1 second. Some trials had a black screen instead of an emoji and participants were asked to respond with a button click. Trials were separated into 3 blocks, 12 minutes each, for a total recording time of 36 minutes.

EEG Recording Procedure: Participant was capped with a 67 electrode cap (standard 10-20 system), seated in a recording room with ear-buds, facing a computer screen showing stimuli. Participants were in the chamber for roughly 1 hour total, as they participated in two experiments. Order was randomized.

Grand Average Results

Congruent average: Major/happy and Minor/sad

Incongruent average: Major/sad and Minor/happy

Latency: 400ms

Latency: 400ms

Grand Average Results Difference

Incongruent Average - Congruent average: (Major/sad + Minor/happy) - (Major/happy + Minor/sad)

Small N400 in topo!But not visible in waveform

Latency: 400ms

Grand Average Results

Individual Results: Major

Barbara

Elena

Kunwoo

Michael

Trang

Major Melody Difference Waves

Individual Results: Minor

Barbara

Elena

Kunwoo

Michael

Trang

Minor Melody Difference Waves

Individual Results: BN

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Individual Results: TN

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Individual Results: EG

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Individual Results: KK

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Individual Results: MM

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Grand Average of EG, KK, MM

Congruence (Major/Happy) vs Incongruence (Major/Sad) Congruence (Minor/Sad) vs Incongruence (Minor/Happy)

Grand Average of EG, KK, MM

Incongruence (Major/Sad) - Congruence (Major/Happy) Topography at 400ms Latency

Incongruence (Minor/Happy) - Congruence (Minor/Sad)Topography at 400ms Latency

Discussion

● N400 in major (sad - happy) was greater than N400 in minor (happy - sad)● 4 out of 5 subjects showed N400 in major (happy/sad)● 4 out of 5 subjects showed N400 in minor (happy/sad)

○ The N400 for minor melody incongruence is low

DiscussionWhy low N400?

● Weak melodic primes○ Prime length of 3.5 seconds may not be enough to induce mood.○ 3rd (which helps distinguish major from minor) appeared infrequently or

too late (not enough priming occurred).○ All melodies were in the same key.○ Pitch was the only varying acoustic feature

● Visual response domination○ Happy and sad emojis may evoke significant responses that are mutually exclusive to auditory

primes

Exploration

What’s affecting the data?

1. Does the Happy/Sad Visual Response dominate Incongruence/Congruence?

2. Does the Major/ Minor Response dominate?

1. Happy/Sad Visual Response: Grand Average

Sad Grand Average: Major/sad and Minor/sad

Happy Grand Average: Major/happy and Minor/happy

1. Happy/Sad Visual Response: Grand Average Difference

Sad Average - Happy Average: (Major/sad and Minor/sad) - (Major/happy and Minor/happy)

The sad emoji evokes a slightly larger negative amplitude than the happy emoji, regardless of melody type (major or minor).

2. Major/Minor Response: Grand Average

Major Grand Average: Major/happy + Major/sad

Minor Grand Average: Minor/happy + Minor/sad

2. Major/Minor Response: Grand Average Difference

Minor Average - Major Average: (Minor/sad and Minor/happy) - (Major/happy and Major/sad)

A small amplitude difference around 250ms indicates the minor primes had a slightly stronger effect than major. This is less of a difference than the emojis.

Remediations

● Vary key so that subjects engage more with melodic context● Increase the number of acoustic features (tempo, timbre, harmony)● Increase length of melodies for better priming● Include more minor tonality (3rd, 6th, 7th)● Use soundtrack music instead to convey emotional content● Use human faces instead of emojis● Use pos/neg words associated with happy (e.g. “joy”) or sad (e.g.

“dark”)

References● Goerlich, K.S., Witteman, J., Schiller, N.O., Van Heuven, V.J., Aleman, A., &

Martens, S. (2012). The nature of affective priming in music and speech. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 24(8), 1725–41.

● Koelsch, S., Kasper, E., Sammler, D., Schulze, K., Gunter, T., & Friederici, A.D. (2004). Music, language, and meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 302-307.