Things are sounding up: affective influences on auditory tone perception

Abstract

Recent studies have documented robust and intriguing associations between affect and performance in cognitive tasks. The present two experiments sought to extend this line of work with reference to potential cross-modal effects. Specifically, the present studies examined whether word evaluations would bias subsequent judgments of low- and high-pitch tones. Because affective metaphors and related associations consistently indicate that positive is high and negative is low, we predicted and found that positive evaluations biased tone judgment in the direction of high-pitch tones, whereas the opposite was true of negative evaluations. Effects were found on accuracy rates, response biases, and reaction times. These effects occurred despite the irrelevance of prime evaluations to the tone judgment task. In addition to clarifying the nature of these cross-modal associations, the present results further the idea that affective evaluations exert large effects on perceptual judgments related to verticality.