Fascinating New Psychology Research Shows How Music Shapes Imagination

jelizondo writes:

Psypost has published a very interesting article titled Fascinating new psychology research shows how music shapes imagination:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people reported turning to music not just for entertainment, but for comfort, support, and even companionship. Now, a new study published in Scientific Reports provides evidence that this sense of "music as company" may be more than a metaphor. Researchers found that music listening can shape mental imagery by increasing the presence of social themes in people's imagined scenes.

The idea that music offers social comfort has been widely reported in surveys and interviews, especially during periods of isolation such as pandemic lockdowns. Listeners often say they use music "to keep them company" or to ease feelings of loneliness. But the extent to which music genuinely prompts social thinking-rather than simply modulating mood-has been unclear. Most prior research has focused on how music affects memory, emotion, or passive mind-wandering. Few studies have examined how music shapes the content of intentional mental imagery, particularly whether it elicits social scenes or interactions.

This distinction is important because directed mental imagery is used in various clinical and therapeutic settings. Techniques such as imagery rescripting or exposure therapy rely on a person's ability to vividly imagine scenarios. If music can reliably shift the content of such imagery toward social themes, it might offer new ways to enhance therapeutic outcomes or support individuals struggling with loneliness.

"There have been many reports of people listening to music to 'keep them company,'" said study author Steffen A. Herff, a Horizon Fellow and leader of the Sydney, Music, Mind, and Body lab at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney. "The number of these reports was particularly high during the pandemic isolation periods. But whether this is just a figure of speech, or an actual empirically observable effect of music on social thought was previously unclear, despite its great applicational implications."

To explore this, the researchers designed two experiments involving over 600 participants. In the first experiment, participants were asked to perform a directed imagery task. They watched a brief video clip showing a solitary figure beginning a journey toward a distant mountain, and were then instructed to close their eyes and imagine how the journey continued. During this 90-second imagination phase, they either heard no sound or listened to folk music in Spanish, Italian, or Swedish.

Each song was played in both vocal and instrumental versions, and participants were either fluent or non-fluent in the language of the lyrics. This allowed the researchers to test whether comprehension or vocal presence mattered for the effect. Across the three language groups, 600 participants took part, split evenly between native and non-native speakers of each language.

After each imagination trial, participants described what they imagined and rated aspects such as vividness and emotional tone. These descriptions were then analyzed using a topic modeling technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation, which allowed the researchers to identify recurring themes across participants' narratives.

The researchers found strong evidence that music had an impact on the characteristics of mental imagery. Compared to silence, music consistently led to more vivid mental scenes, more positive emotional tone, and greater perceived time and distance traveled in the imagined journey.

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