Probing imagined tempo for music: Effects of motor engagement and musical experience

Abstract

Both musically trained and untrained adults can reproduce the tempo of familiar music with high precision. However, conflicting evidence exists as to how well representations of tempo are preserved within musical imagery. The present study investigated whether previous conflicting evidence might result from the use of different tasks to measure imagined tempo. Tempo judgments for familiar music were collected in a repeated-measures design using two imagined music tasks and one perceived music task. In one imagined music task participants tapped in time to the beat of the imagined music (Imagery (motor) task), while in the other they did not move in time with the music and instead adjusted a click track to the beat (Imagery (non-motor) task). Overall, performance was most accurate on the perceived music task, in which all musical cues were present. Performance on the Imagery (motor) task was also significantly more accurate than performance on the Imagery (non-motor) task. Training and active engagement with music positively predicted imagery task performance, whereas perceived music task performance was influenced by properties related to the song stimuli, such as familiarity and the original, recorded tempo. Results are discussed in relation to previous literature on auditory-motor interactions and musical expertise.

Involuntary and voluntary recall of musical memories: A comparison of temporal accuracy and emotional responses

“…This high precision of tempo recall has been corroborated in subsequent work in which INMI episodes were sung into a recording device, with a reported mean deviation from the original tempo of approximately 12 % (McNally-Gagnon, 2016 ). Comparisons to a separate study in which participants were asked to tap the tempo of pop songs in a VMI task (Jakubowski, Farrugia, & Stewart, 2016 ) suggest that musical tempo recall within INMI is as, or perhaps even more, accurate than tempo recall within VMI (mean deviation from the original tempo in VMI task = 18.4 %). However, this difference could potentially be attributed to design differences between the studies; for instance, Jakubowski et al ( 2016 ) was a laboratory-based study using experimenter-selected pop songs whereas Jakubowski et al ( 2015 ) was a naturalistic, diary study in which participants recorded all INMI episodes as they occurred.…”

“…Comparisons to a separate study in which participants were asked to tap the tempo of pop songs in a VMI task (Jakubowski, Farrugia, & Stewart, 2016 ) suggest that musical tempo recall within INMI is as, or perhaps even more, accurate than tempo recall within VMI (mean deviation from the original tempo in VMI task = 18.4 %). However, this difference could potentially be attributed to design differences between the studies; for instance, Jakubowski et al ( 2016 ) was a laboratory-based study using experimenter-selected pop songs whereas Jakubowski et al ( 2015 ) was a naturalistic, diary study in which participants recorded all INMI episodes as they occurred. In addition, potentially confounding variables such as familiarity with a tune and recency of hearing it aloud cannot be accounted for when comparing these studies.…”

“…In the autobiographical memory domain, one study has revealed similar subjective ratings for the accuracy of details when comparing IAMs to VAMs for different autobiographical events (Mace et al, 2011 ). In the musical memory literature, previous evidence accumulated across three separate studies (Jakubowski et al, 2015 , 2016 ; McNally-Gagnon, 2016 ) indicates that INMI tempo may potentially be recalled more accurately than VMI tempo, although methodological differences between the studies limit the extent to which definitive conclusions can be drawn. If INMI tempo is recalled with similar accuracy to VMI tempo, this would suggest that the findings of Mace et al ( 2011 ) generalize to musical memories as well as to accuracy comparisons for the same memory as recalled via both retrieval modes.…”

Collaborative Musical Creativity: How Ensembles Coordinate Spontaneity

“…3 begins in the key of D minor is different from imagining the sound of the first chords or the feel of playing the piano line. The pitch (Aleman et al, 2000 ), timing (Janata and Paroo, 2006 ; Jakubowski et al, 2016 ), dynamics (Wu et al, 2011 ; Bishop et al, 2014 ), and timbre (Halpern et al, 2004 ) of perceived music can be imagined with high veridicality. Emotion is also perceived similarly in sounded and imagined music (Lucas et al, 2010 ).…”

Mental Control in Musical Imagery: A Dual Component Model

“…Other studies using Tempo Judgment paradigms (see Table 1) ask participants to listen to or imagine specific pieces of music and indicate what they believed to be the correct tempo (Jakubowski et al, 2015, 2016). Unsurprisingly, people are most accurate when listening to a song (Jakubowski et al, 2016).…”