O som enquanto promotor de arousal emocional em contextos multi-sensoriais de valência negativa

Abstract

Worldly objects are described in terms of perceptual dimensions or sensory modalities. Although these can be integrated into a single perception, there is sensory information that is often ignored or suppressed, due to the brain's inability to process all stimuli present in the environment. This depletion of attentional resources can be interpreted alternatively by dilution effects, or cross-modal priming effects. These are thought to serve to reduce the magnitude or inhibit the perception of a less prominent modal input, making it considered perceptual “noise” in the background of more relevant present inputs. Regarding emotional stimuli, it seems that negative affects influence attention in different ways, depending specifically on the level of arousal provoked. Thus, it provides information about the urgency or importance of stimuli in the environment. The present study evaluated the level of arousal caused by a scenario of negative valence in multi and uni-modal terms, specifically in the visual and auditory modalities. Thus, it was stipulated that, in this context, information would not be integrated, inferring the importance of the auditory modality for the creation of high levels of arousal, as well as its possible implication in the development and / or maintenance of Psychological Disorders, such as PTSD. In terms of the results obtained, an inferential analysis using the Kruskal-Wallis test for the self-report measures and for the physiological measures did not reveal the existence of any differences between the study conditions (p> 0.05).

Date of Award	2021
Original language	Portuguese
Supervisor	PEDRO SANTOS PINTO GAMITO (Supervisor) & JORGE ALEXANDRE GASPAR OLIVEIRA (Supervisor)