1

Effects of Mortality Salience on Musical

Perception –

The Complex made Simple

Henning Brand

Universität Koblenz-Landau

FB 8 Psychologie

Im Fort 7

76829 Landau

Germany

e-mail: brandh@uni-landau.de

Ute Hoffmann

Universität Bielefeld

e-mail:ute.hoffmann@post.uni-bielefeld.de

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ABSTRACT

The authors inquired the impact of mortality salience on

perceived complexity of music. In social psychology, terror

management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986)

conceives fear of death as a motivational force driving humans

towards an increased adherence to ingroup values, which are in

turn described as the person´s cultural worldview. In contrast

to this position, the authors suggest that imposed threat does

not affect the ascription of cultural value but leads to a

perceptual reduction of complex information to simple, clear

cut positions. Hence complex music presented under threatening

conditions should be perceived as simple and unambiguous.

Participants in threatening versus comforting situations were

exposed to either ambiguous or unambiguous musical stimuli of

high versus low assigned cultural value. Though under threat,

TMT predicts a preference for "cultural values", it was

hypothesized here that threat causes a preference for

unambiguous music. There was no evidence for a preference for

cultural values. Furthermore, striving for unambiguity rather

than for cultural values seems to be an active process: In the

mortality salience condition both unambiguous and ambiguous

music was rated as more unambiguous, more structured, and more

uniform than it was rated in a comforting condition.

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At the outset of the investigation presented here, there

was the authors’ interest in terror management theory

(subsequently refered to as TMT), an approach in social

psychology investigating consequences of threatening situations

to behavior. And there was an experience by one of the authors

visiting a group therapy with patients suffering from stress.

One of them worked as a guard in prison and was confronted with

everyday violence and hence extremely stressful situations. It

happened, that the man became aggressive and hostile listening

to Bach’s suite in d-minor for violin. Thus, the initial idea

for further investigation was that apparently peaceful and

calming music can render extreme to overt aggressive reactions

if heard under stress. Starting from the perspective of TMT, an

experimental approach at music perception under threat is

presented in the following.

In TMT(Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski & Lyon,

1989), it is hypothesized that the most basic of all human

motives is eternal life. If people are reminded of their own

mortality, they need a mechanism to repress the fear of death

into unconsciousness. Human beings need assurance that there is

such a thing as relative stability to protect them from terror.

Based on this assumption, TMT postulates that individual

versions of a cultural worldview serve an anxiety-buffering

function. Cultural worldviews, as symbolic means of self-

preservation (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, & Hamilton,

1990), can guarantee meaning, order, and stability in a largely

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uncontrollable universe. If people adhere to the cultural

standards of their own culture, thereby believing to be a

valuable participant of that culture, they gain a feeling of

symbolic immortality. As the individuals are part of their

culture, they are promised immortality if they live up to meet

the cultural standards.

Prejudice and hostility toward people who violate

permanent and concrete social norms are explained by means of a

cultural anxiety-buffer which is set into function exclusively

by fear of death (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, &

Breus, 1994). As TMT states, fear of death should have its most

powerful impact on a pre-conscious level. It is hypothesized

"that the problem of death may exert its effect primarily when

it is on the fringes of consciousness; that is, when it is

highly accessible but outside of current focal attention or

working memory" (Pyszczynski, Greenberg & Solomon, 1997, p. 4).

A standard design in TMT - research involves a more or

less fictitious target person -- a prostitute or a criminal --

whose behavior is at odds with moral standards or ingroup

values. A treatment is devised during which the experimental

group is exposed to death related stimuli, a threatening

situation, as for example being confronted with one´s own

mortality by filling out a questionnaire on what it would be

like to die. The control group is given a neutral or even

comforting treatment. Both groups are asked to judge the target

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person´s behavior, as for example by defining an appropriate

penalty for the prostitute or the criminal. It is usually found

that under mortality salience judgements are more rigorous and

harsher. This is explained by increased adherence to one´s

cultural worldview as a means of repressing anxiety out of

consciousness.

The Definition of Culture Within TMT

Culture is defined as "a shared conception of reality that

imbues life with meaning, order, and permanence, and the

promise of safety and death transcendence to those who meet the

prescribed standards of value" (Greenberg, Solomon, &

Pyszczynski, 1997, p. 71). It becomes clear that the concept of

culture given by TMT is a functional one. Culture serves to

reduce anxiety. But otherwise, there is no conceptual

definition of culture involved, which is a striking fact given

that everyday understanding of culture seems to refer to

achievements, particular works of art, i.e. some actual

contents to be of cultural value.

Cultural criticism, e.g. the critical theory put forward

by Adorno (1972a), had an obvious tendency to disconnect

cultural values from the instrumental idea that they have to

serve for any purpose beyond themselves: Culture exists "in

contrast to everything that serves the reproduction of material

life ... the self-maintenance of human beings, the preservation

of their existence" (Adorno, 1972a, p. 123 [translation by the

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authors]). The source of cultural achievements, as for example

works of art, is seen in the "subject´s opposition against the

empirical reality" (Adorno, 1970, p. 104 [translation by the

authors]). It follows that an artist capable of cultural

achievements should resist subscribing increasingly to ingroup

values. On the other hand, putting a prostitute into prison

hardly seems to be a matter of "cultural value".

What does culture or the individual´s version of a

cultural worldview within TMT really mean? Are ingroup-

favoritism and outgroup-discrimination to be identified with

culture? Wicklund (1997) outlines some problems with the

cultural concepts of TMT. He argues that the

operationalizations of the cultural worldview concept converge

with the verbalizations of the authoritarian personality, as

operationalized by the California F-Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-

Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950). The authoritarian

personality suffers from status-anxiety and thus responds in

the same way as individuals who are aware of their own

mortality. Both the authoritarian personality and the

individual who thinks of death behave in the same unambiguous

way: They disparage outgroups and subscribe increasingly to in-

group values as the only valid ones. In a similar vein,

Hoffmann (1997a,b) suggests that culture within the terror

management perspective can be replaced by a wish for clear and

concrete positions. If individuals are threatened, they seek

security. Security is provided by means of unambiguity. It

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would seem that in TMT, a preference for clear-cut positions

and the subjective definition of culture are confounded.

Let´s have another look at the prejudiced, authoritarian

personality. Adorno (1972b) states that "prejudiced persons

generally display belief in conventional values instead of

making moral decisions of their own ... . Through

identification, they too tend to submit to a group ego at the

expense of their own ego ideal which becomes virtually merged

with external values" (p. 416). As outlined above, the

conception of culture in Adorno´s own theorizing implies that a

person capable of cultural achievements should be less

susceptible for group pressure, whereas the authoritarian

personality particularly responds to external values. It

follows that the authoritarian personality is relatively

incapable of cultural achievements, and instead, rather works

against such cultural values than appreciating them.

Considering these theoretical problems in TMT, the

existing operationalizations of the cultural worldview are

misleading. Accordingly, the basic idea of our experimental

approach to this theoretical framework is to disconnect

"culture" and "unambiguity". We hypothesize that participants

exposed to terror prefer unambiguous stimuli, no matter if

there is a connection to culture or not.

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Applying the Theory to Musical Perception

From what is said so far, music in threatening situations

may either be perceived in terms of cultural value, as

suggested by TMT, or reduced in perceived complexity, as is

suggested by the alternative perspective suggested by the

authors. Quite happily, musical material can be manipulated

experimentally with regard to the ambiguity vs. unambiguity of

its structure. Furthermore, musical material is easily

connected with culture and should therefore allow to assign

"high" vs. "low" cultural value to a given musical stimulus.

A Study on Musical Perception

Overview

Whereas under mortality salience, TMT would predict a

preference for "cultural values", it is hypothesized here that

general threat -- of which mortality salience constitutes only

a specific instance -- will result in a preference for

unambiguity. Two different predictions are conceivable: (a) TMT

would predict that those reminded of their own mortality, if

compared with participants in a comforting condition, would

prefer music of ascribed cultural value to music culturally

unimportant, regardless of whether ambiguous or unambiguous

musical stimuli are presented. Alternatively, (b) if the

assumption is correct that thinking about mortality causes

anxiety and the person can find security within concrete and

clear positions, it would not matter whether the musical

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material is connected with culture. The individual would prefer

in any case unambiguous stimuli. In order to test the terror

management prediction against the prediction that mortality

salience leads to a preference for unambiguous music,

participants were assigned to conditions in a 2 x 2 x 2

(Mortality Salience, Culture, Unambiguity) factorial design.

Mortality salience . In the present study mortality

salience was operationalized by an open-ended questionnaire

about death. Control participants filled out a questionnaire

about winning a prize in the lottery.

Culture . TMT states that if mortality is made salient,

cultural conceptions of reality provide a context for

repressing the fear of death into unconsciousness. In this

context the person should prefer cultural conceptions of

reality, thereby gaining a feeling of immortality.

Culture was manipulated by informing half of the

participants that the music had been written by a famous

composer who already wrote outstanding piano works, as well as

electronic music. This information should connect music with

meaning, value, and importance, which are qualities indicating

culture in terms of TMT. The other half of the participants

were informed that they were going to hear a hobby musicians

work. Music written by a hobby musician should have no cultural

value. It should be perceived as unfamous and unimportant.

TMT would predict that participants in the Mortality

Salience condition should prefer music written by a famous

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composer. By contrast, according to the proposed alternative

view, if threat leads to a preference of unambiguous stimuli,

participants in the Mortality Salience condition should prefer

unambiguous music more than ambiguous music. Contrary to the

predictions of TMT, culture should have no influence on the

dependent measures.

Unambiguity of music . One way to define unambiguous and

ambiguous music is to differentiate music according to

structural features. Mikol (1960) defines music as conventional

if it has a clearly defined melody, a harmonic structure, and a

low degree of rhythmic complexity. That kind of music should be

perceived as unambiguous. Ambiguous music or "new system

music", as Mikol names it, is at odds with traditional music,

in that it departs from a harmonic structure and uses a high

degree of rhythmic complexity. Unambiguous music hence

satisfies expectations guided by cognitive schemes. Thus, to

provide unambiguous music, one of the authors constructed and

recorded an eight bar piano piece having a plain melody,

harmonic structure and straight rhythm that was repeated during

the experiment. In the ambiguous condition, a piano piece was

recorded that had neither a clear melody, nor conceivable

harmonic and rythmical structure and contained no repetitions.

Method

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Participants and Laboratory Arrangements

The participants were 27 male and 53 female students of

different faculties from the University of Bielefeld, recruited

in the main hall of the building. The median age was 24 years.

The students were asked to participate in an experiment about

musical perception. Psychology students received experimental

credits; students of other faculties received five German marks

for their participation.

While participating in the study, participants sat at a

table in an experimental cubicle. On the table was a tape

recorder and a questionnaire with the heading "Experiment on

Musical Perception".

Procedure

When the participant entered the laboratory, he or she was

sat at a table and began filling out the questionnaire. The

experiment was described as an investigation of the influence

of music on the ability to concentrate. The participant first

gave information about sex, age, and field of study. Then, in

the Mortality Salience condition, a "death"-questionnaire was

presented. This questionnaire consisted of two open questions:

(a) People in Europe live 75 years on average. Do you

think that you too will reach this age? How many years

will you still live?

(b) What should happen to your corpse?

In the Lottery condition, we asked participants:

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(a) Imagine that you have won in the lottery. What would

you do with the money?

(b) Which amount of money would be desirable?

Depending in which condition the participant was, at the

end of both questionnaires we asked participants the following

questions in parallel form: "How do you feel while thinking of

your own death?" and "How do you feel while thinking of a prize

in a lottery?", respectively. A brief bipolar mood checklist

was presented for both. The ratings were made on bipolar 7-

point scales, the end points being items on the checklist

"comfortable vs. uncomfortable", "anxious vs. free of anxiety",

"relaxed vs. tense" and "good vs. bad".

Then, participants got the information that they would

hear music while working on mathematics tasks. Half of the

participants read the information that the music they were

going to hear was written by a famous composer, who already

wrote outstanding piano works as well as electronic music. The

other half read that the music was a hobby musician´s work. It

was thus implied, that a hobby musician´s work was of no

particular value.

TMT postulates that mortality salience exerts its effect

when it is on the fringes of consciousness (Greenberg,

Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994; Pyszczynski,

Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). Mortality should be highly

accessible but outside of current focal attention. Greenberg et

al. (1997) suggest that a delay and distraction from the

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thoughts of death may therefore facilitate the effects of

terror management. For this reason, participants judged music

while working on mathematics tasks in order to distract

mortality salience participants from the problem of death.

While participants were adding digits in rows of five

elements, they simultaneously heard either unambiguous or

ambiguous music. The unambiguous music contained a

straightforward eight bar formal structure with clearly defined

melody and harmonic progression. This eight bar structure was

repeated throughout the presentation of the piece. Music in the

ambiguous condition had neither melody nor harmonic or formal

structure. It was thus not in correspondence with the standards

used by Mikol (1960) to describe "conventional" music.

Manipulation Checks

Manipulation Checks consisted of six adjectives presented

on a 7-point bipolar rating scale, in sense of reflecting the

degree to which the ambiguous musical piece was really

perceived to be ambiguous. The items read:

ambiguous versus unambiguous

without structure versus well structured

complex versus simple

confused versus clear

without rhythm versus rhythmical

Dependent Measures

Music preferences were operationalized by items measuring

the perceived quality of music, how much the participant felt

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distracted by music, and the influence of music while working

on a mathematics tasks.

Quality of music . The subjective quality of music was

assessed by the question: "How did you enjoy the music?"

measuring by means of a 7-point rating scale with end points

being very well and not at all. Another measure of the

subjective quality consisted of a list of six 7-point bipolar

adjectives:

amateurish versus professional

aggressive versus comforting

melancholic versus cheerful

bad versus good

unpleasant versus pleasant

boring versus interesting

It was expected that mortality salience would lead to a

higher evaluation of unambiguous music.

Disturbed by music . The degree to which the music was

rated as positive should also be reflected by the degree to

which participants felt disturbed by music. The item "Did you

feel disturbed by music" was rated on a 7-point scale ranging

from "absolutely not disturbed" to "very much disturbed". It

was hypothesized that threatened participants would feel less

disturbed by unambiguous music.

Influence of music on the mathematics tasks . Participants

answered the question: "What influence did the music have on

your performance on the mathematics tasks?" with the

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alternatives: very negative influence, negative influence, no

influence, positive influence, and very positive influence. In

the Mortality salience condition ambiguous music should have a

more negative influence on the performance of the mathematics

task than unambiguous music.

After the questionnaire had been completed, participants

were debriefed, thanked for their participation, and given the

experimental credit or the monetary reward.

Results

Manipulation Checks

Threat . Participants rated their mood on four bipolar 7-

point scales (comfortable vs. uncomfortable, anxious vs. free

of anxiety, good vs. bad, relaxed vs. unrelaxed). Mortality

Salience caused more discomfort than imagining a prize in a

lottery, t (76) = 6.70, p < .00011. Participants in the

Mortality salience condition reported feeling more anxious than

Lottery participants, t (76)= 2.43, p < .02, and threatend

participants felt worse than participants in the Lottery

condition, t (75)= 7.34, p < .0001. Analysis of ratings how

"relaxed vs unrelaxed" participants felt showed no effects

approaching significance, p > .10.

Unambiguity . All items indicating unambiguity proved to be

highly significant. Music with a clearly defined melody was

rated as more unambiguous, t (78)= 3.25, p < .005, had more

structure, t (78)= 4.46, p < .0001, was more homogeneous, t (78)=

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5.20, p < .0001, was rated to be simpler, t (78)= 6.25, p <

.0001, was clearer t (78)= 5.29, p < .001, and had more rhythm,

t (78)= 4.24, p < .0001, than music lacking a formal structure.

Dependent Measures

The dependent measures consisted of seven items concerning

the quality of music, the perceived disturbance of music, and

the influence of music on the mathematics tasks. It was

hypothesized that threat induced as mortality salience would

cause a higher evaluation of unambiguous music: Threatened

participants should ascribe a higher degree of quality to

unambiguous music. They should be less disturbed by unambiguous

music and unambiguous music should have a less perceived

negative influence on performing mathematics tasks than

unambiguous music. A connection to culture should have no

influence on the dependent measures2.

Quality index . The quality of the music was assessed by

the question "How did you enjoy the music" and six bipolar

items (e.g.: amateurish vs. professional, boring vs.

interesting). A reliability analysis of the seven measures

indicating quality revealed a Cronbach´s alpha of .85. These

items were summed and then averaged so that a high score

indicated positive evaluation of music. Thus, an overall

quality index was obtained.

TMT would predict an interaction between mortality

salience and culture. Participants in the mortality salience

condition should evaluate culturally important music more

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positive than participants in the lottery condition. As

anticipated, and in contrast to the assumptions of TMT, culture

had no influence on the perceived quality of music. An analysis

of variance yielded no significant interaction between threat

and culture, p > .10. This finding contradicts the terror

management hypothesis that mortality salience participants

respond positively toward cultural values.

Unexpectedly, there was no interaction between mortality

salience and unambiguity. An analysis of variance revealed only

one main effect, indicating that participants liked unambiguous

music ( M = 4.70) more than ambiguous music ( M = 4.06), F (1,72)=

6.03, p < .02.

Disturbed by music . The item "Did you feel disturbed by

music" was rated on a 7-point scale (1= absolutely not

disturbed, 7= very much disturbed). As hypothesized, culture

had no influence on the perceived disturbance of music. Neither

the factor culture nor the two-way interaction (Mortality

Salience x Culture) yielded significant results, all ps > .10.

An analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect

for the factor Unambiguity, F (1,72)= 6.73, p < .02. Ambiguous

music was rated as more disturbing ( M = 5.53) than unambiguous

music ( M = 4.43). There was also a significant two-way

interaction (Mortality Salience x Unambiguity), F (1,72)= 6.79,

p < .02:

It was hypothesized that participants in the mortality

salience condition should rate ambiguous music to be more

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disturbing than unambiguous music. Surprisingly, in the lottery

condition participants reported being more disturbed by

ambiguous music ( M = 6.30) than by unambiguous music ( M = 3.81),

t (39), p < .01 (see Table 1). In the Mortality salience

condition there were no significant differences between

ambiguous and unambiguous music, p > .10.

-------------------------

Insert Table 1 about here

-------------------------

Influence of music on the mathematics tasks . The item

"What influence did the music have on your performance on the

mathematics tasks?" was rated on a 5-point scale (1= very

negative influence, 5= very positive influence). An analysis of

variance revealed a significant main effect for the factor

unambiguity, F (1,72)= 8.86, p < .005. Unambiguous music had a

more positive influence ( M = 2.70) than ambiguous music ( M =

2.20). No two-way or three-way interactions reached statistical

significance, ps > .10.

Interpreting the results . An analysis of the dependent

measures quality index, perceived disturbance of music, and

influence of music on the mathematics tasks revealed no

evidence that participants in the mortality salience condition

prefer culturally important music more than the hobby

musician´s work. Besides, there was no hint for a preference

for unambiguous music as a reaction to threat.

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It was implicitly suggested that in threatening conditions

only unambiguous stimuli are preferred. But, on the other hand,

if striving for unambiguity is an active process, participants

should perceive music in general as more unambiguous -- no

matter whether the music actually had an univocal, harmonical

formal structure or not. Even if unequivocal positions are not

available, the person should persuade himself/herself imagining

disharmonic and ambiguous music as unambiguous. If both --

unambiguous and ambiguous music -- is perceived as unambiguous,

there should be no differences in the perceived quality,

disturbance, and influence of music depending on threat.

Simultaneously, threat should result in a more unambiguous

perception of music.

Further analysis: perceived ambiguity . An ambiguity scale

consisting of six bipolar items was used for a manipulation

check (see Table 2). As already presented, music with a clearly

defined melody was rated as more unambiguous than music which

lacked a formal structure. An interesting result was that

threat produced differences in participants´ responses on items

measuring ambiguity.

A reliability analysis of the six measures indicating

unambiguity (see Table 2) revealed a Cronbach´s alpha of .85.

These items were summed and then averaged so that a high score

indicated unambiguity. Participants in the Mortality salience

condition perceived the music as more unambiguous ( M = 4.65)

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than participants in the Lottery condition ( M = 4.15), t (78) =

1.74, p < .10.

An analysis of the six items, considered separately, shows

that participants in the Mortality salience condition perceived

the music as more unambiguous, more structured, and more

uniform, all p s < .05.

-------------------------

Insert Table 2 about here

-------------------------

Although differences between the mortality salience and

the lottery condition on the items complex vs. simple, confused

vs. clear, without rhythm vs. rhythmical were not significant,

the means go in the same direction. Threat seems to produce a

tendency to perceive music as more unambiguous than a

conforting condition.

Discussion

It was hypothesized that threat -- operationalized by

open-ended questions about death -- would cause a need for an

unambiguous position. Unambiguity/ambiguity was manipulated by

the presentation of music. Music either contained a

straightforward eight bar formal structure with a clearly

defined melody and harmonic progression or had neither melody,

harmonic nor formal structure. Participants in the mortality

salience condition should have preferred unambiguous music more

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than ambiguous music compared to participants in a comforting

condition (lottery). The preference of music was measured by a

quality index, the perceived disturbance of music, and the

influence of music on a mathematical task. In contrast to a

wish for unambiguity under threat, TMT predicts that

participants should respond positively toward music connected

with culture.

Inconsistent with TMT, there was no evidence that

participants under mortality salience preferred culturally

important music to music with not associated with culture.

Besides, preference for unambiguous stimuli seems an

active process. Participants´ perception of music as ambiguous

or unambiguous was influenced by threat. Participants under

threat perceived music as more unambiguous, no matter whether

the music actually had an univocal harmonic formal structure or

not. If protection from anxiety requires a feeling of security

within clear and unambiguous positions, even if these

unequivocal positions are not available, persons persuade

themselves imagining disharmonic, unconventional music, and

ambiguous music as unambiguous. Although participants in the

mortality salience condition heard either unambiguous or

ambiguous music they perceived all music as unambiguous, well

structured, and uniform(see Table 2).

Further, the results indicate that unambiguous music is

rated more positively than ambiguous music. Participants

reported being less disturbed by unambiguous music, and

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unambiguous music had a more positive influence on the

mathematics tasks. Therefore, unambiguous music seems to be

preferred in general. In the lottery condition participants

reported being more disturbed by ambiguous music than by

unambiguous music. But no differences yielded significance in

the mortality salience condition. If the assumption is correct

that mortality salience leads to a creation of unambiguity, all

music is perceived as unambiguous and therefore, regarding

participants´ feelings of being disturbed by music, there

should be no differences between unambiguous and ambiguous

music.

Whereas TMT predicts a preference for "cultural values"

under mortality salience, the results tend in the direction

that threat causes a need for unambiguity.

So what about the aggressive man reported in the beginning

of this inquiry? It may be that ambiguous musical stimuli

provoke aggression if a situation is created in which the music

is inescapably present (loud enough to focus attention,

difficult or impossible to turn out). Possibly, there are such

features of the situation that account for aggression provoked

by seemingly “harmless” music. On the other hand, there could

be factors within the person, be it a dispositional “open vs

closed mindedness” or acute stress, having impact on aggressive

behavior. Here lies a perspective for future research.

23

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Footnotes

1. This analysis involved only 78 participants because two

participants did not state how comfortable vs. uncomfortable

they feel. Two participants gave no information about feeling

anxious and three participants did not rate the scale "relaxed

vs. unrelaxed". All subsequent analyses are two-tailed.

2. Initial analyses were conducted including sex as a factor.

Sex did not interact with Mortality Salience and Culture on any

of the dependent measures. Though female participants evaluated

unambiguous music higher (quality index) than ambiguous music,

sex did not interact with Unambiguity on the participants´

feeling disturbed by the music and the influence of music on

mathematics tasks. Sex was not included in the final analyses.

27

Table 1

Did you Feel Distracted by Music?

Unambiguous Music Ambiguous Music

Mortality Salience

M

SD

4.74 (19)

2.25

4.75 (20)

2.40

Lottery

M

SD

3.81 (21)

1.86

6.30 (20)

2.64

Note . The higher the mean, the higher the perceived distraction

(range = 1 to 9). The number of participants in each condition

is given in parentheses.

28

Table 2

Perceived Unambiguity in the Lottery and Mortality Salience

Condition

Lottery

( n = 41)

Mortality Salience

( n = 39)

Ambiguous --

Unambiguous

3.41* 4.13*

Without Structure -

- Well Structured

4.49** 5.41**

Varied -- Uniform 3.83* 4.54*

Complex -- Simple 4.00 4.18

Confused -- Clear 3.98 4.41

Without Rhythm --

Rhythmical

5.17 5.23

Note . The higher the mean, the more is the music perceived as

unambiguous, well structured, uniform, simple, clear, and

rhythmical (range = 1 to 7). * p < .05, ** p < .01.