`Musical imagery' is the experience of imagining music in the `mind's ear'. A study was conducted to explore the prevalence and nature of musical imagery for music students in everyday life, using experience-sampling methods (ESM). As a group, music students reported that imagining music was a very frequent form of musical experience. Participants reported individual variation in their imagery experience but also common differences between the strength of imagery for different musical dimensions. For instance, melody and lyrics were rated as being more vivid components of the image than timbre and expression. Another clear pattern was the influence of hearing music on musical imagination, one indicator being that 58 percent of sampled episodes described having heard or performed the music recently as a possible reason for currently imagining it.

Synchronization has recently received attention as a form of interpersonal interaction that may affect the affiliative relationships of those engaged in it. While there is evidence to suggest that synchronized movements lead to increased affiliative behavior (Hove & Risen, 2009; Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2011; Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009), the influence of other interpersonal cues has yet to be fully controlled. The current study controls for these features by using computer algorithms to replace human partners. By removing genuine interpersonal interaction, it also tests whether sounds alone can influence affiliative relationships, when it appears that another human agent has triggered those sounds. Results suggest that subjective experience of synchrony had a positive effect on a measure of trust, but task success was a similarly good predictor. An objective measure of synchrony was only related to trust in conditions where participants were instructed to move at the same time as stimuli.

Multivariate analyses of dynamic correlations between continuous acoustic properties (intensity and spectral flatness) and real-time listener perceptions of change and expressed affect (arousal and valence) in music are developed, by an extensive application of autoregressive Time Series Analysis (TSA). TSA offers a large suite of techniques for modeling autocorrelated time series, such as constitute both music's acoustic properties and its perceptual impacts. A logical analysis sequence from autoregressive integrated moving average regression with exogenous variables (ARIMAX), to vector autoregression (VAR) is established. Information criteria discriminate amongst models, and Granger Causality indicates whether a correlation might be a causal one. A 3 min electroacoustic extract from Wishart's Red Bird is studied. It contains digitally generated and transformed sounds, and animate sounds, and our approach also permits an analysis of their impulse action on the temporal evolution and the variance in the perceptual time series. Intensity influences perceptions of change and expressed arousal substantially. Spectral flatness influences valence, while animate sounds influence the valence response and its variance. This TSA approach is applicable to a wide range of questions concerning acousticperceptual relationships in music.

this study investigates the relationship between acoustic patterns in contemporary electroacoustic compositions, and listeners' real-time perceptions of their structure and affective content. Thirty-two participants varying in musical expertise (nonmusicians, classical musicians, expert computer musicians) continuously rated the affect (arousal and valence) and structure (change in sound) they perceived in four compositions of approximately three minutes duration. Time series analyses tested the hypotheses that sound intensity influences listener perceptions of structure and arousal, and spectral flatness influences perceptions of structure and valence. Results suggest that intensity strongly influences perceived change in sound, and to a lesser extent listener perceptions of arousal. Spectral flatness measures were only weakly related to listener perceptions, and valence was not strongly shaped by either acoustic measure. Differences in response by composition and musical expertise suggest that, particularly with respect to the perception of valence, individual experience (familiarity and liking), and meaningful sound associations mediate perception.

Listener perceptions of changes in the arousal expressed by classical music have been found to correlate with changes in sound intensity/loudness over time. This study manipulated the intensity profiles of different pieces of music in order to test the causal nature of this relationship. Listeners (N = 38) continuously rated their perceptions of the arousal expressed by each piece. An extract from Dvorak's Slavonic Dance Opus 46 No 1 was used to create a variant in which the direction of change in intensity was inverted, while other features were retained. Even though it was only intensity that was inverted, perceived arousal was also inverted. The original intensity profile was also superimposed on three new pieces of music. The time variation in the perceived arousal of all pieces was similar to their intensity profile. Time series analyses revealed that intensity variation was a major influence on the arousal perception in all pieces, in spite of their stylistic diversity.

Little is known about the prevalence or nature of the everyday experience of imagining music in the "mind's ear". An obstacle has been the reliance on indirect, retrospective reporting. Musical imagery research to date has been limited to the experimenter-centred environment of laboratory studies. This paper considers the use of Experience-Sampling Methods (ESM) to explore musical imagery as it occurs in everyday life. A pilot study applied ESM to determine when musical imagery might occur and how it is experienced. Eleven music students were cued to fill out an experience-sampling form (ESF) at random times throughout a seven-day period. Likert scale items probed the strength of imagery for different musical dimensions, while more general questions explored respondents' current activities, interaction with others and mood. Participants reported hearing externally sounded music for 47% of these episodes and imagining music for 35%. A high rate of return and the depth of information provided by respondents suggest that ESM techniques are an effective way of exploring musical imagery in ecologically valid conditions. It is argued that this method could be used to explore mental imagery for music in a wider population. Refined sampling techniques may offer a way to test specific hypotheses concerning characteristics of everyday imagery for music. Exploring auditory imagery in naturalistic as well as laboratory settings may lead to a clearer understanding of the influence of context on our mental imagery of music.

Imagining music in the course of everyday life is commonplace, and recent studies have begun to reveal what we imagine, and to ask why. However, research methods that rely on retrospective reports are not sensitive to the transience of imagined musical experience. In 2007, Bailes used experience sampling methods instead, to understand the prevalence and nature of imagined music episodes among music students. The current study extends this research to a larger and broader sample of the general public (N ϭ 47, with 1,415 episodes), to determine what people imagine, when, and why. Respondents were contacted by SMS 6 times a day, for the period of a week. On contact, they filled out an experience sampling form surveying current location, activity, mood, and details of any musical experience, heard or imagined. Open questions elicited reasons for imagining particular music, and probed the nature of the experience. Specific hypotheses linking musical imagery to thought incursions and mood regulation were tested. A positive relationship between the frequency of imagining music and transliminality was found, as well as mood congruence between heard and imagined music episodes. Suggestions are made for further research into the potential influence of chronobiology, arousal, and attention on everyday musical imagery.

Previous studies have demonstrated that synchronising movements with other people can influence affiliative behaviour towards them. While research has focused on synchronisation with visually observed movement, synchronisation with a partner who is heard may have similar effects. We replicate findings showing that synchronisation can influence ratings of likeability of a partner, but demonstrate that this is possible with virtual interaction, involving a video of a partner. Participants performed instructed synchrony in time to sounds instead of the observable actions of another person. Results show significantly higher ratings of likeability of a partner after moving at the same time as sounds attributed to that partner, compared with moving in between sounds. Objectively quantified synchrony also correlated with ratings of likeability. Belief that sounds were made by another person was manipulated in Experiment 2, and results demonstrate that when sounds are attributed to a computer, ratings of likeability are not affected by moving in or out of time. These findings demonstrate that interaction with sound can be experienced as social interaction in the absence of genuine interpersonal contact, which may help explain why people enjoy engaging with recorded music.