congruent or incongruent background melodic temporal pattern (top panel) and as a function of height of the bounce and congruent or incongruent background melodic pitch height (bottom panel). Figure 3 Schematic representation of a simple model of information integration from multiple visual and auditory dimensions which gives rise to the resultant meaning of the audio visual stimulus.

The previous example examined one rating scale. Another technique developed some years ago uses many rating scales to measure affective meaning on three basic dimensions: Evaluative, Potency and Activity (Osgood, Suci & Tannenbaum, 1957). The technique, called the semantic differential, is associationist, in that it assumes that an object will give rise to affective associations on these dimensions and their strength can be measured through ratings on separate bipolar scales which tap the particular dimension (e.g., fast-slow taps the Activity dimension). In one study (Marshall & Cohen, 1988), individual groups of subjects provided semantic differential ratings for (1) two

contrasting pieces of specially composed music, called Strong and Weak (2), a short animated film by Heider and Simmel (1944) involving three geometric figures and finally (3) the film accompanied by the two musical backgrounds. The overall ratings of the film changed in the presence of the music. For the Activity and Potency dimensions, an averaging of musical and film meaning was consistent with the data but the role of music on the Evaluative dimension was more complex and was accounted for in terms of a compatibility factor rather than a simple integration of the visual and auditory Evaluative ratings. As well, ratings of the individual characters in the film (the large triangle, small triangle and circle) also changed as a function of the music background as shown in Figure 4. A simple associationist account of the data was complemented by the proposal of a Congruence-Associationist model in which music governed attention