Abstract
In communication between humans, emotion is an important aspect having a powerful influence on the structure as well as content of a conversation. In human-factors research, the interaction between humans is often used as a guide to improve the quality of human-computer interaction. Despite its important role, however, emotion has not been considered as a source for further improving the quality of interaction between humans and computers. In a series of three experimental studies and one theoretical review, we investigated whether the affective connotation of the major and minor mode in Western tonal music could be exploited to create feedback sounds with an emotional property and whether the affective charge within those sounds could influence rational decision-making. We tried to answer these questions without using physiological responses related to changes in emotion, but instead employed indirect measurements usually employed in stimulus-response compatibility research. Our findings clearly showed that the decisions that participants had to make were influenced by the affective charge of the feedback sounds. Particularly, we found that a noncorrespondence between the affective charge of the sounds and that of Yes/No responses (that participants were instructed to execute) resulted in a performance decrement compared to a situation in which the affective charges did correspond. We concluded that the affective connotation of the major and minor mode can be employed to create affectively-charged feedback sounds in human-computer interfaces and that it is important to maintain affective correspondence between affectively-charged interface elements to ensure optimal interaction between human and computer. Results in which these patterns of correspondence and noncorrespondence were reversed, highlighted the importance of participants' strategies and interpretations of instructions.
