Penny Bergman

Perceptual and emotional categorization of sound

This paper investigates how different types of data from psychoacoustical experiments may be combined to render further knowledge about the mechanisms underlying sound perception. Two studies were conducted with auditory alerts of short duration. First, an experiment where participants rated the dissimilarity among the auditory alerts was performed. This resulted in a two-dimensional multi-dimensional scaling solution. Second, an experiment where participants evaluated the stimuli with semantic descriptors and rated their emotional reactions to the sounds was performed. The output of this experiment was a reduced set of underlying perceptual and emotional dimensions. The results of the two experiments were then integrated by the use of multi-dimensional perceptual unfolding and a set mediation analyses. The integrative analyses showed that part of the cognitive categorization of the semantic descriptors was mediated by the emotional reactions to the sounds. The results are discussed in relation to theories of auditory perception and emotional response categorization.

The pleasant heat? Evidence for thermal-emotional implicit associations occurring with semantic and physical thermal stimulation

The association between thermal and emotional experiences in interpersonal relations is intuitively apparent and has been confirmed by previous studies. However, research has not yet elucidated whether such an association is grounded in mental processes occurring at an intrapersonal (internal) level. In two experiments we examined whether the thermal-emotional associations can be observed at an intrapersonal level. We looked at the speed and accuracy of stimuli categorization. Experiment 1 examined the implicit semantic association between temperature (warm versus cold) and emotional valence (positive versus negative). Experiment 2 examined the association between experience of physical temperature and emotional valence. In both experiments warm-positive/cold-negative associations were demonstrated. These results suggest a conceptual and perceptual mapping in the mental representation of emotion and temperature, which occurs at an intrapersonal level, and which might serve as the ground to the interpersonal thermal-emotional interactions.

Emotion and meaning in interpretation of sound sources

Research regarding the perception of sound focuses in large on the acoustical properties of the sound. We argue that, for a more complete picture of sound perception, one must take the non‐physical properties into account. By changing the emotional descriptor of a sound the perception in terms of level of annoyance will change. The present study investigates how a priming picture placing the origin of the sound in either a positive or negative environment affects the level of annoyance to same sound. Three different sounds were used in the experiment, all based on pink noise. The participants were, in the beginning of each sound, exposed to a picture telling where the sound originated. The picture was either a positive environment (a picture of a waterfall) or a negative environment (a picture of a larger factory). While listening to the sounds the participants completed different performance tasks. In the end of each sound the participants rated the level of annoyance. Results show that the annoyance ratings are significantly lower when primed with a positive picture. Results also indicate that for more attention demanding tasks this correlation is stronger. The findings are discussed in relation to theories of sound perception.

Auditory-Induced Emotion Mediates Perceptual Categorization of Everyday Sounds

Research has shown that emotion categorization plays an important role in perception and categorization in the visual domain. In the present paper, we investigated the role of auditory-induced emotions for auditory perception. We further investigated whether the emotional responses mediate other perceptual judgments of sounds. In an experiment, participants either rated general dissimilarities between sounds or dissimilarities of specific aspects of sounds. The results showed that the general perceptual salience map could be explained by both the emotional responses to, and perceptual aspects of, the sounds. Importantly, the perceptual aspects were mediated by emotional responses. Together these results show that emotions are an integral part of auditory perception that is used as the intuitive basis for categorizing everyday sounds.

The pleasant heat? A study of thermal-emotion associations

Recent studies demonstrated that the physical feeling of warmth could make people judge others more favorably, act more generously (Williams and Bargh, 2008) and induce greater social proximity (IJzerman and Semin, 2009). In the present study, we examined whether temperature is implicitly associated with positive or negative valence. In Experiment 1, subjects judged the valence of the emotion words and pictures with two response buttons, of which one is physically warm and the other is physically cold, and measured the reaction time. The response button assignment can be either congruent (warm-positive/cold-negative) or incongruent (warm-negative/cold-positive). We found that for emotion words, the warm-positive/cold-negative congruence holds. However, for emotion pictures, reverse results were obtained. To further examine the thermo-valence association, follow-up implicit association tests (IATs) were conducted with positive/negative words and warm/cold words in Experiment 2, and positive/negative pictures with warm/cold pads in Experiment 3. The results from Experiment 2 show a tendency towards warm-positive/cold-negative congruence. However, such tendency was not found in Experiment 3. In summary, our results indicate that when the valence is presented semantically, it is implicitly associated with both physical thermal experience (EXP 1) and abstract thermal concept (EXP 2), and the association follows the common expectation of warm-positive/cold-negative congruence. However, when the valence is presented visually, the association is not consistent (EXP 1 and EXP 3). These findings suggest that temperature might interact differently with valences being elicited by semantic and visual information.

Perception of simple sounds from an emotional point of view

In sound perception the focus often lies in the cognitive aspect of the sound. We argue that the emotional aspect has to be added to get a fuller picture of sound perception. By using emotions as parameter in design of auditory alerts, one can reach a more accurate reaction to the alert. In this paper we studied the emotional connection to some attributes, common in music psychology, that are possible to describe by simple parameters. Short stimuli were created from these parameters in a factorial test design. The sounds were presented over headphones, with same signal fed to both ears, to 30 participants. The participants were asked to rate level of valence and activation, using a pictorial scale (SAM). Statistical differences was mostly found in ratings of activation, but differences were also shown in valence ratings. Results will be discussed in relation to theories of sound perception as well as music psychology.