The present study tests the effects of top-down processing, in particular the influence of contextual knowledge, on the emotional interpretation of sounds. 18 sounds from the International Affective Digitized Sounds (six pleasant, six unpleasant, and six neutral) are played in three different framing-label conditions: the positive condition displays an emotionally positive label preceding each sound, the negative condition displays an emotionally unpleasant label, and the neutral condition displays numeric labels. Subjects are randomly assigned to one of the three framing-label conditions and, after being presented each label-sound pair, provide their ratings of each sound’s valence and arousal on a Likert-like scale. Skin conductance and facial muscle activity are recorded in order to measure emotional responses to each label-sound pair. The current study will determine the impact of top-down processing on emotional reactions by measuring whether subjects exhibit physiological responses typically evoked by pleasant stimuli (e.g., increased zygomatic activity) in the positive label condition, and responses typically evoked by unpleasant stimuli (e.g., increased corrugator activity) in the negative label condition, both regardless of sound valence. Alternatively, subjects’ reactions may be influenced by particular combinations of both label and sound valences.
