Empirical evidence has supported that musical excerpts written in major and minor modes are responsible for evoking happiness and sadness, respectively. In this study, we evaluated whether the emotional content evoked by musical stimuli would transfer to abstract figures when they became members of the same equivalence class. Participants assigned to the experimental group were submitted to a training procedure to form equivalence classes comprising musical excerpts (A) and meaningless abstract figures (B, C, and D). Afterward, transfer of function was evaluated using a semantic differential. Participants in the control group showed positive semantic differential scores for major mode musical excerpts, negative scores for minor mode musical excerpts, and neutral scores for the B, C, and D stimuli. Participants in the experimental groups showed positive semantic differential scores for visual stimuli equivalent to the major modes and negative semantic differential scores for visual stimuli equivalent to the minor modes. These results indicate transfer of function of emotional content present in musical stimuli through equivalence class formation. These findings could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of using emotional stimuli in equivalence class formation experiments and in transfer of function itself.

中文翻译：

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使用音乐刺激基于等价类形成的函数传递

经验证据表明，以大调和小调写成的音乐片段分别能引起快乐和悲伤。在这项研究中，我们评估了当音乐刺激引起的情感内容成为同一等价类的成员时，它们是否会转移到抽象人物上。分配到实验组的参与者接受培训程序，以形成由音乐摘录（A）和无意义的抽象图形（B、C和D）组成的等价类。之后，使用语义差异来评估功能转移。对照组的参与者对大调音乐摘录表现出正语义差异分数，对小调音乐摘录表现出负分数，对 B、C 和 D 刺激表现出中性分数。实验组中的参与者对于相当于主要模式的视觉刺激表现出正语义差异分数，对于相当于次要模式的视觉刺激表现出负语义差异分数。这些结果表明音乐刺激中存在的情感内容的功能通过等价类形成进行了转移。这些发现可以更全面地理解在等价类形成实验和功能转移本身中使用情绪刺激的效果。