Presented at the 18th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2012) on June 18-21, 2012  in Atlanta, Georgia.Reprinted by permission of the International Community for Auditory Display, http://www.icad.org.Mood induction with pleasant and unpleasant auditory stimuli during the break. Our test includes subjective evaluation (Nasa-TLX, KSS, POMS), cognitive tests and brain responses (MEG and EEG). We aim studying the effect affective state has on work-like tasks. Hypothesis: pleasantness of auditory mood induction affects cognitive performance and brain responses

Ahonen, Lauri

Gröhn, Matti

Huotilainen, Minna

Scholarly Materials And Research @ Georgia Tech

Questionaires/Preparations  Testset 1  Questionaires  Mood induction  Questionaires  Testset 2  Questionaires  Personal Info + POMS  Cognitive tests  NASA-TLX, KSS, POMS  Pleasant/Unpleasant  POMS Cognitive tests  NASA-TLX, KSS, POMS  20 min 35 min 5 min 12 min 5 min 25 min 5 min Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Auditory Display, Atlanta, GA, USA, June 18-21, 2012  EFFECTS OF PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT AUDITORY MOOD INDUCTION ON THE  PERFORMANCE AND IN BRAIN ACTIVITY IN COGNITIVE TASKS  Matti Gröhn, Lauri Ahonen, Minna Huotilainen  Finnish Institute of Occupational Health  Topeliuksenkatu 41 a A, FIN-00250 Helsinki, Finland  firstname.lastname@ttl.fi ABSTRACT Our study focuses on mood induction with pleasant and un-pleasant auditory stimuli during the break. Our test includes sub-jective evaluation (NASA-TLX, KSS, POMS), cognitive tests and  brain responses (MEG and EEG). We aim studying the effect af-fective state has on work-like tasks. Hypothesis: pleasantness of  auditory mood induction affects cognitive performance and brain  responses.  1. INTRODUCTION Cognitive performance results from multiple factors including  arousal and physical fatigue. Affective state, major modulator for  cognitive and physical performance, is often neglected. Here we  investigate the effects of different dimensions in affective state on  performance in cognitive tests and electrophysiology.  Music has the indeniable ability to convey strong emotions. In  addition, lots of research under the topic of music is devoted to  revealing the possible effects music claimed to have on cognitive  performance. One of the famous cases is the controversial Mozart  effect[1]. Not more than decade ago there was an intense debate  about the reputed effect Mozart’s music has on performance in cer-tain spatially demanding cognitive tasks. The debate more or less  concluded that music has an effect on affective state. This effect  is called enjoyment arousal, i.e., arousing and positively valenced  effect of musical experience[2]. However, the research around the  discussion did not try to specify the dimensions of affective state  influenced by the effect, in terms of the two dimensional model  namely valence vs. arousal. A novel paradigm is designed for  measuring the effect of mood on performance and related elec-trophysiology in cognitive tests. The tests are chosen to simulate  a cognitively demanding tasks during a regular workday in office  like work environment.  2. MOOD INDUCTION There are a number of experimental techniques that have been de-veloped to induce positive or negative mood in the participants.  The effectiveness of these Mood induction procedures (MIP) has  been investigated [3] and the MIPs using music have been shown  to be effective. For example, the cardiovascular and respiratory  patterns are changed according to the mood induced by music [4].  When studying the physiological features related to changes of  mood, e.g., measures of heart rate or heart rate variability, blood  pressure, etc., the acoustic and especially rhythmic content of the  musical material plays a key role. One may expect effect related  to temporal synchronization of the physiological functions and the  Table 1: One visit testprotocol.  musical material. Such synchronization, or entrainment of espe-cially respiration to the temporal characteristics of the music used  in the mood induction may completely override all physiological  effects in the study [5].  3. METHOD 3.1. Subjects and Procedure We have currently measured 7 subjects. Five of them were female  and two male. Their ages varied from 21 to 38, mean 27 standard  deviation 6.6. In Table 1 is a protocol for one visit. Each visit  starts with questionaires and preparations for the MEG and EEG  measurements. The Profile of Mood States (POMS) are used to  measure affective mood state of the subject.  We have three cognitive tests in our protocol: N-back, Task  Switching and Image Memory. In Testset 1, each test includes  training trials before the measurements. In Testset 2, tests are ac-complished without training. The testsets are performed before  and after a mood induction in two different days, i.e. tests are per-formed four times in total. Paradigm is counter balanced so that  half of the subjects get negative induction first as the other half get  positive treatment first.  After the cognitive tests the NASA-TLX, KSS and POMS  questionaires are accomplished.  After the first round there is a break, which includes pleasant  or unpleasant mood induction. In pleasant mood induction sub-jects are exposed to music of personal choice. We provide pre-selected playlists from different genres among pop, electro, clas-sical, and rock. The playlists were created considering the effect  on arousal. Mean tempo of each playlist is adjusted to match the  mean tempo of the unpleasant sound sequence. It is mix of en-vironmental noise created by superimposing negatively assosiable  sounds, e.g. crying, alarms, and dental drills.  In the MEG we obtained a large number of brain responses  from which we determined their amplitude and timing, especially  242 Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Auditory Display, Atlanta, GA, USA, June 18-21, 2012  KSS Mental Demand  Frustration  Before Pleasant  6.2(1.5)  2.0 (1.4) 3.0 (1.0)  Before Unpleasant  5.3(1.7)  2.3(1.6)  2.7(1.8)  After Pleasant  5.7(1.9)  2.5(1.1)  2.5(1.9)  After Unpleasant  5.5 (0.8)  2.3(1.6)  2.3(1.2)  Table 2: Mean and standard deviation for KSS (scale 1 (aroused)  to 7 (sleepy)) and NASA-TLX (scale 1 to 5).  the onset and peak times. The responses are elicited by the pre-sentations of the figures and sounds that occur in the cognitive ex-periments. In all test types the responses, reaction times, stimulus  onsets and related electrophysiology are recorded with Neuromag  data acquisition system.  N-back task: The participants will complete a visual n-back  task after a practice trial. In each condition a total of 180 stimuli  (numbers) will be presented one at a time on a computer screen.  The participants will be instructed to give a response to whether  the number is the predetermined ”x” within a sequence of numbers  (0-back), the same as the previous number (1-back), or the same  as the number presented 2 numbers back (2-back), or not.  Task switching . When people have to switch between two  tasks, they are slower on the task-switching than on the task-repeating trials [6]. We compared the time needed and mis-takes made in unpredictable task-switching trials to those in task-repetition trials.  Image Memory. Tests for visual memory are prone to errors  hence a good assessing technique for cognitive performance [7].  The test is alternation of The Cambridge Face Memory Test [8].  Instead of faces we use abstract images selected in collaboration  with clinical psychologists. The difficulty of the task is adjusted by  adding images to target train to achieve sufficient error frequency.  4. RESULTS The questionnaire about the pleasantness of the break and its ef-fects showed that the subjects found the break with self-chosen  music to be clearly more pleasant than the break with noise. The  perceived pleasantness of the break in scale 1 to 5 was 3.6 (0.24)  for pleasant and 1.3 (1.2) for unpleasant break. The KSS question-naire showed that the break changed the arousal level: the pleasant  break increased it and the unpleasant break decreased it. In the  NASA-TLX, the mental demands and the frustration changed dif-ferently according to break type, see Table 2. In POMS, the effect  of the break type was most clearly seen in the arousal dimension.  In the MEG and EEG, all three test types produced clear responses.  For example, the presentation of the task image in the task switch-ing experiment gave rise to clear P300 responses. The response  magnitudes and latencies in the four conditions were compared.  Simultaneously, the performance data from the experiments were  obtained. The intra-subject variability was large compared to the  effects of the break type.  5. DISCUSSION Inducing mood changes by listening to music or sounds has been  demonstrated in many experimental set-ups. Our aim was to in-duce mood changes by music or sounds during a short break be-tween cognitively demanding tasks. We succeeded in creating a  pleasant and an unpleasant break with measurable effects. When  changes in the mood states, sleepiness and task-related effects  were compared after the pleasant and unpleasant break, the results  were individually quite variable and dependent on the individual  situation prior to the break. The task performance of the partici-pants became better during the experiment - the reaction times got  faster and the hit rates became generally better. Such a learning  effect has been shown also in previous studies. The effect of the  short break in the midst of the task performance was surprisingly  small and was largely masked by the learning effect. This may be  due to the fact that the tasks themselves also induced changes in  the mood. The tasks are demanding and frustating and may thus  override the effects of the pleasant break. The EEG and MEG  methods are clearly capable of capturing the brain activity related  to the three tasks since clear brain responses were observed. The  participants’ response patterns were affected by the breaks, but the  effects were not clearly consistent across subjects. This may be  due to the differential effects of the tasks on individual subjects’  mood. In sum, mood induction with music or sounds was found to  be possible even during short breaks and it may affect the cognitive  task performance.  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENT  We thank our subjects and BioMag personnel. In addition, we  thank the reviewers for their valuable comments, which improved  our paper.  7. REFERENCES [1] F. H. Rauscher, G. L. Shaw, and K. N. Ky, “Music and spatial  task performance,”  Nature, vol. 365, p. 611, Oct 1993.  [2] E. G. Schellenberg and S. Hallam, “Music listening and cog-nitive abilities in 10- and 11-year-olds: the Blur effect,”  Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. , vol. 1060, pp. 202–209, Dec 2005.  [3] R. Westermann, K. Spies, G. Stahl, and F. Hesse, “Rela-tive effectiveness and validity of mood induction procedures:  a meta-analysis,” European Journal of Social Psychology. , vol. 34, pp. 557–580, 1992.  [4] J. Etzel, E. Johnsen, J. Dickerson, D. Tranel, and R. Adolphs,  “Cardiovascular and respiratory responses during musical  mood induction,” International Journal of Psychophysiology , vol. 61, pp. 57–69, 2006.  [5] C. Wientjes, “Respiration in psychophysiology: methods and  applications,” Biological Psychology. , vol. 34, no. 2–3, pp.  179–203,1992. [6] R. Rogers and S. Monsell, “The costs of a predictable switch  between simple cognitive tasks,”  J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. , vol. 124, pp. 207–231, 1995.  [7] B. J. Sahakian, R. G. Morris, J. L. Evenden, A. Heald, R. Levy,  M. Philpot, and T. W. Robbins, “A comparative study of visu-ospatial memory and learning in Alzheimer-type dementia and  Parkinson’s disease,” Brain , vol. 111 ( Pt 3), pp. 695–718, Jun  1988. [8] B. Duchaine and K. Nakayama, “The Cambridge Face Mem-ory Test: results for neurologically intact individuals and an  investigation of its validity using inverted face stimuli and  prosopagnosic participants,”  Neuropsychologia , vol. 44, pp. 576–585,2006.  243 

Effects of pleasant and unpleasant auditory mood induction on the performance and in brain activity in cognitive tasks

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Effects of pleasant and unpleasant auditory mood induction on the performance and in brain activity in cognitive tasks

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