The effect of mood on attention to global and local characteristics of music

Abstract

The effect of mood on global and local processing was studied in 60 undergraduate psychology students, half of which were randomly assigned to a positive condition and the other half to a negative condition. Each participant carried out same-different judgements on pairs of melodies that were either the same, or altered globally or locally. Key findings included significant differences in performance for all melodies; however despite a trend for enhanced local processing in a negative mood compared to a positive mood, the effect of mood on global and local processing failed to reach statistical significance. These findings suggest that mood may not have a strong influence on processing in auditory perception.