Ragozzine-Emotional Impact of Major and Minor - Neurocritical Care ...

Emotional Impact of
Major and Minor Triads
in Music
Frank Ragozzine
Youngstown State University

Valence of Major and Minor
Hevner Hevner (1935; 1936)
Major keys have positive valence
(e.g., happy), minor keys have
negative valence (e.g., sad)
• Found even in musically untrained
listeners

Valence of Major and Minor
The The association with mode and
valence appears during childhood
(e.g., Dalla Bella et al., 2001)
Children 6 to 8 years old show adult
pattern
Five-year Five year olds do not

Valence of Major and Minor
Crowder Crowder (1984; 1985)
A single major or minor chord can be
reliably categorized as positive or
negative
• Regardless of musical training

Triads

Affective Priming
Typical Typical affective priming experiment
(e.g., Fazio et al. 1986)
Present prime word having either
positive or negative valence
Then present target word having
either positive or negative valence
• Subject evaluates target as positive or
negative

Typical Typical finding
Affective Priming
Faster responses when prime-target
prime target
valences are congruent

Affective Priming with Triads
Purpose Purpose of experiments:
To examine whether major and minor
triads produce cross-modal cross modal affective
priming
Predicted interaction between triad
type and target-word target word valence

Conditions
Four Four types of trials:
Major-Positive Major Positive (congruent)
Minor-Negative Minor Negative (congruent)
Major-Negative Major Negative (incongruent)
Minor-Positive Minor Positive (incongruent)
Two Two counterbalanced versions

Procedure
Subjects Subjects were told the sound was a
cue that a word was about to
appear
Told to categorize target word as
positive or negative

Examples

nurse

nurse

cancer

cancer

Experiment 1 (Ragozzine, 2008)
List List of 100 words
Equal Equal emphasis on speed and
accuracy
2x2 repeated-measures repeated measures ANOVA
• Significant cross-over cross over interaction for
error data

Mean Errors
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Major Minor
Triad
F(1, 11) = 16.73, p = .002, ? p 2 = .60
Negative
Word
Positive
Word

Experiment 2 (Ragozzine &
Gismondi, Gismondi,
2009)
In In a similar experiment:
Shortened word list
Emphasized accuracy
Significant cross-over cross over interaction for
RT data

Mean Reaction Time (ms)
930
910
890
870
850
Major Minor
Triad
F(1, 9) = 7.67, p = .022, ? 2 p = .46
Negative
Word
Positive
Word

Conclusions
Cross Cross-modal modal affective priming with
major and minor triads
Shown with both RT and errors
Subjects not aware of affective value
of primes

References
Crowder, R. G. (1984). Perception of the major/minor distinction: distinction:
I. Historical and
theoretical foundations. Psychomusicology, 4, 4,
3-12. 3 12.
Crowder, R. G. (1985). Perception of the major/minor distinction: distinction:
III. Hedonic,
musical, and affective discriminations. Bulletin of the Psychonomic
Society, 23, 314-316. 314 316.
Dalla Bella, S., Peretz, I., Rousseau, L., & Gosselin, N. (2001). (2001) . A developmental
study of the affective value of tempo and mode in music. Cognition, Cognition
80, 80,
pp. B1-B10. B1 B10.
Fazio, R. H., Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Powell, M. C., & Kardes, F. R. (1986). On the
automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 50, 50,
229-238. 229 238.
Hevner, K. (1935). The affective character of the major and minor minor
modes in
music. The American Journal of Psychology, 47, 103-118. 103 118.
Hevner, K. (1936). Experimental studies of the elements of expression expression
in music.
The American Journal of Psychology, 48, 246-268. 246 268.
Ragozzine, F. (2008, May). Emotional connotations of major and minor triads interfere
with categorization of words. words.
Poster presented at the meeting of the
Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.
Ragozzine, F., & Gismondi, M. J. (2009, November). Cross-modal Cross modal affective priming:
Effect of major and minor triads on word valence categorization. categorization.
Paper
presented at the Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action Meeting, Meeting,
Boston, MA.

Psychoanalytic
Psychoanalytic
Theories
Lowered third in a minor triad
produces castration anxiety

Theories

Familiarity Familiarity
Theories
We are more likely to ‘perceive perceive’ a
major triad than a minor triad any time
we hear a single musical tone
• Tendency to positively evaluate familiar
things

Dissonance Dissonance
Theories
Harmonics of the tones of a minor
triad produce more dissonance
• Evaluate dissonance negatively

Learning Learning
Theories
The valences of major and minor are
learned during childhood