Abstract
<p>Disgust remains one of the least studied emotions in music psychology, largely because music is typically regarded as an aesthetic medium and because disgust is phylogenetically rooted in chemical and tactile rather than auditory senses. This study addresses the absence of standardized musical stimuli for disgust through two sequential experiments involving the affective evaluation of 36 musical clips (20 s each) composed to represent three categories: disgust, positive, and neutral. In Experiment 1 (n = 125), participants rated the clips on valence, arousal, and a disgust–fear continuum. Disgust clips occupied the low-valence, high-arousal quadrant but were not consistently differentiated from fear. Seven clips were revised by removing low-register pedals, increasing the salience of sounds semantically associated with contamination, and reducing rhythmic regularity. In Experiment 2 (n = 62), the revised clips achieved significant differentiation from fear on the continuum. Results suggest that musical expression of disgust requires not merely abstract structural codes but the integration of indexical sounds associated with contamination experiences within non-tonal musical environments. These findings provide a methodological foundation for constructing disgust-related auditory stimuli applicable to research on music-evoked emotions and their interaction with moral and political judgment.</p>