The Impact of Cross-Sensory Interaction Between Emotional Images and Musical Modes on the Aesthetic Evaluation of Neutral Stimuli

Previous studies have shown that major key music paired with positive emotional images is typically associated with positive emotions, while minor key music paired with negative images tends to be linked to sadness. However, there is still a lack of research on the integrative mechanisms underlying cross-modal emotion transference between music and image. The present study employed a 2 (image: positive vs. negative) × 2 (music: major vs. minor) within-subjects design to investigate how these combinations influence aesthetic preferences for neutral stimuli. The findings revealed the following: (1) Under minor key music, negative emotional images significantly enhanced the aesthetic evaluation of neutral stimuli compared to positive emotional images. This reflects an emotion-congruent effect, facilitating emotion assimilation–contrast processes and enhancing aesthetic experience. (2) Under positive emotional images, major key music significantly increased the aesthetic appraisal of neutral stimuli relative to minor key music, again promoting assimilation–contrast effects and aesthetic enhancement. (3) Under negative emotional images, there was no significant difference in aesthetic evaluation of neutral stimuli between major and minor key music, possibly because the negative images dominated the emotional processing, marginalizing the influence of music. (4) Under major key music, no significant difference in aesthetic evaluation of neutral stimuli was observed between positive and negative emotional images, which may suggest that, within the emotional framework of major key music, the emotional impact of positive and negative images converged and thus failed to significantly alter aesthetic preferences. These findings reveal boundary conditions for the emotion assimilation–contrast effect in the context of cross-modal emotion transference. From an applied perspective, musical mode and emotional image can serve as effective modulators in the perception and aesthetic evaluation of visual information.