The content and functions of vivid and soothing visual imagery during music listening: Findings from a survey study.

Küssner, Mats B.; Eerola, Tuomas

doi:10.1037/pmu0000238

Cited by 40 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Prior studies on non-directed mind-wandering and visual imagery have shown that music influences the sentiment of the imagined content 13 , 25 . Extending this finding to a directed imagination context suggests that music may be used as a catalyst in imagery rescripting therapies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Music in particular has been proposed as a promising tool to explore imagination, as more than 70% of music listeners indicate that they experience visual imagery when listening to music 11 – 13 . This is consistent with functional neuroimaging research showing activation of the visual cortex during music listening with eyes closed 14 – 16 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior characterisations of undirected mind-wandering whilst listening to music often involves a dissociation from the body 21 , with imagined landscapes, autobiographical scenes as well as film-like narratives 13 , 25 , which suggests that music affects imagined (or simulated) position in space and time. This is also important to consider when investigating directed imagery—rather than non-directed mind-wandering—as prior studies have shown that listeners can associate music with physical space and imagined bodily motions 36 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Herff

Cecchetti

Taruffi

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Directed, intentional imagination is pivotal for self-regulation in the form of escapism and therapies for a wide variety of mental health conditions, such anxiety and stress disorders, as well as phobias. Clinical application in particular benefits from increasing our understanding of imagination, as well as non-invasive means of influencing it. To investigate imagination, this study draws from the prior observation that music can influence the imagined content during non-directed mind-wandering, as well as the finding that relative orientation within time and space is retained in imagination. One hundred participants performed a directed imagination task that required watching a video of a figure travelling towards a barely visible landmark, and then closing their eyes and imagining a continuation of the journey. During each imagined journey, participants either listened to music or silence. After the imagined journeys, participants reported vividness, the imagined time passed and distance travelled, as well as the imagined content. Bayesian mixed effects models reveal strong evidence that vividness, sentiment, as well imagined time passed and distances travelled, are influenced by the music, and show that aspects of these effects can be modelled through features such as tempo. The results highlight music’s potential to support therapies such as Exposure Therapy and Imagery Rescripting, which deploy directed imagination as a clinical tool.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Herff

Cecchetti

Taruffi

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This parallel between cognitive resources involved in imagery and perception also largely applies to the other sensory modalities (Kosslyn et al, 2001 ). Music very often stimulates internal images in the listener (Küssner & Eerola, 2019 ), consisting of pictorial representations (natural landscape, colors), embodied image-schemata (picturing a melodic movement as an ascending or descending image), or complex visual narratives (similar to a movie) (Taruffi & Küssner, 2019 ). Sad music has been found to trigger enhanced mind-wandering in the form of visual mental imagery with emotion- and nature-related content (Taruffi, Pehrs, et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trait Empathy Shapes Neural Responses Toward Sad Music

Taruffi

Skouras

Pehrs

et al. 2021

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Individuals with a predisposition to empathize engage with sad music in a compelling way, experiencing overall more pleasurable emotions. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these music-related experiences in empathic individuals are unknown. The present study tested whether dispositional empathy modulates neural responses to sad compared with happy music. Twenty-four participants underwent fMRI while listening to 4-min blocks of music evoking sadness or happiness. Using voxel-wise regression, we found a positive correlation between trait empathy (with scores assessed by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and eigenvector centrality values in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), including the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). We then performed a functional connectivity (FC) analysis to detect network nodes showing stronger FC with the vmPFC/mOFC during the presentation of sad versus happy music. By doing so, we identified a “music-empathy” network (vmPFC/mOFC, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, primary visual cortex, bilateral claustrum and putamen, and cerebellum) that is spontaneously recruited while listening to sad music and includes brain regions that support the coding of compassion, mentalizing, and visual mental imagery. Importantly, our findings extend the current understanding of empathic behaviors to the musical domain and pinpoint sad music as an effective stimulus to be employed in social neuroscience research.

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“…Music's capacity to gesture toward external events is familiar from film music (Kassabian, 2001;Tan, Cohen, Lipscomb, & Kendall, 2013.) Yet we also know that music commonly triggers imagery in the absence of any visual component (Küssner & Eerola, 2019); that such imaginings can generate high levels of absorption (Presicce & Bailes, 2019;Vroegh, 2019), and that there can be substantial intersubjectivity in imaginings sustained in response to particular excerpts (Huovinen & Kaila, 2015;Margulis et al, 2019;McAuley, Wong, Mamidipaka, Phillips, & Margulis, 2021;Tagg & Clarida, 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Drives Narrative Engagement With Music?

et al. 2021

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Although people across multiple cultures have been shown to experience music narratively, it has proven difficult to disentangle whether narrative dimensions of music derive from learned extramusical associations within a culture or from less experience-dependent elements of the music, such as musical contrast. Toward this end, two experiments investigated factors contributing to listeners’ narrative engagement with music, comparing the narrative experiences of Western and Chinese instrumental music for listeners in two suburban locations in the United States with those of listeners living in a remote rural village in China with different patterns of musical exposure. Supporting an enculturation perspective where learned extramusical associations (i.e., Topicality) play an important role in narrative perceptions of music, results from the first experiment show that for Western listeners, greater Topicality, rather than greater Contrast, increases narrative engagement, as long as listeners have sufficient exposure to its patterns of use within a culture. Strengthening this interpretation, results for the second experiment, which directly manipulated Topicality and Contrast, show that reducing an excerpt’s Topicality, but not its Contrast reduces listeners’ narrative engagement.

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The content and functions of vivid and soothing visual imagery during music listening: Findings from a survey study.

Cited by 40 publications

References 48 publications

Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Trait Empathy Shapes Neural Responses Toward Sad Music

What Drives Narrative Engagement With Music?

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