What happens when you're lost between happiness and sadness?: Effects on consumers' cognitive responses

Two experiments examine the effects of dramatic contrast between the music and the message of an ad on consumers' temporal perceptions and memory. Results suggest that individuals' level of discomfort with ambiguity (DWA) plays a significant role in memory and temporal perceptions when being exposed to auditory stimuli that incorporate two oppositely-valenced affective components. Music that creates dramatic contrast with the ad message leads to weaker recall and recognition for the ad messages, and lower ad duration estimates for subjects with high discomfort with ambiguity. Further, results reveal an effect of prior mood on cognitive responses toward stimuli that create dramatic contrast. Participants in a positive (vs. negative) mood report better recall and recognition, and lower but more accurate duration estimates in the case of a stimulus creating dramatic contrast.