Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Natural Sciences

Second Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Schalles, Matthew

Second Advisor

Clore, Amy

Area of Concentration

Biochemistry and Biopsychology with Music

Abstract

The United States struggles with high rates of mental health conditions and their misdiagnosis. Both major diagnostic manuals used in mental health rely solely on behavioral and self-reported measures for their diagnostic criteria. Differential diagnosis could be supported by implementing non-invasive neurophysiological and neuroendocrinological measures. Regarding the treatment aspect of healthcare, music therapists can be equipped with additional tools by understanding how individual manipulations of musical components directly influence emotion. Many music studies examine the general effects of music or conduct correlation analyses of songs that share musical components, rather than employing a controlled paradigm in which near-identical pieces are presented with one component altered. In tackling both topics, I present a study in which participants were presented with parallel major and minor versions of the same musical pieces while I measured their frontal alpha asymmetry, salivary cortisol, and self-report data on the circumplex model. It was predicted that the data would answer whether (1) the difference of modes would produce opposite valence emotion, (2) the cortisol and FAA would be predictive of the subjective valence and arousal, respectively, on the circumplex model, and (3) the order of presentation would produce increased arousal due to prediction error. The results showed, rather, that (1) the modes established separate contexts that modulated the relationships between subjective and biological variables, (2) cortisol instead was associated with valence and FAA with arousal, and (3) the presentation order created a novel and familiar context, decreasing arousal in the second session.

Rights

The author has granted New College of Florida the nonexclusive right to archive, make accessible, and distribute for educational purposes this work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The copyright of this work remains with the author.

Additional Files
Appendix B, Stimuli.zip (36579 kB)
Appendix C, Scripts.zip (12 kB)
Appendix D, Data.zip (2209277 kB)
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