Efficiency of Musical Emotions for the Reconciliation of Conceptual Dissonances.

摘要

In the present project, PI developed theoretical foundation for the evolution of music in cooperation with an AFRL scientist, Leonid Perlovsky and considered the implications of our findings about the reconciliation of cognitive dissonance which was experimentally created in 4-year-old children, who obeyed an experimenter's warning not to play with a desired toy. Without exposure to music, it was found that an experimenter's mild warning led to stronger devaluation of the toy than an experimenter's severe warning, confirming the findings of previous research. When the children were exposed to one of Mozart's sonatas, however, this devaluation of the toy was not induced by the mild warning. The results indicate the possibility of the efficacy of music for reconciling cognitive dissonances. Moreover, further experiment revealed that an exposure to a Mozart minuet mitigates the cognitive interference whereas on the contrary when the music has been modified to consist of mostly dissonant intervals the interference effect has been intensified.