The speed of our mental soundtracks: Tracking the tempo of involuntary musical imagery in everyday life

The study of spontaneous and everyday cognitions is an area of rapidly growing interest. One of the most ubiquitous forms of spontaneous cognition is involuntary musical imagery (INMI), the involuntarily retrieved and repetitive mental replay of music. The present study introduced a novel method for...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 2015-11, Vol.43 (8), p.1229-1242
Main Authors: Jakubowski, Kelly, Farrugia, Nicolas, Halpern, Andrea R., Sankarpandi, Sathish K., Stewart, Lauren
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Artificial Intelligence
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive science
Computer Science
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Female
Humans
Imagination - physiology
Laboratories
Male
Memory, Long-Term - physiology
Mental Recall - physiology
Music
Neuroscience
Psychology
Researchers
Semantics
Sound
Studies
Time Perception - physiology
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The study of spontaneous and everyday cognitions is an area of rapidly growing interest. One of the most ubiquitous forms of spontaneous cognition is involuntary musical imagery (INMI), the involuntarily retrieved and repetitive mental replay of music. The present study introduced a novel method for capturing temporal features of INMI within a naturalistic setting. This method allowed for the investigation of two questions of interest to INMI researchers in a more objective way than previously possible, concerning (1) the precision of memory representations within INMI and (2) the interactions between INMI and concurrent affective state. Over the course of 4 days, INMI tempo was measured by asking participants to tap to the beat of their INMI with a wrist-worn accelerometer. Participants documented additional details regarding their INMI in a diary. Overall, the tempo of music within INMI was recalled from long-term memory in a highly veridical form, although with a regression to the mean for recalled tempo that parallels previous findings on voluntary musical imagery. A significant positive relationship was found between INMI tempo and subjective arousal, suggesting that INMI interacts with concurrent mood in a similar manner to perceived music. The results suggest several parallels between INMI and voluntary imagery, music perceptual processes, and other types of involuntary memories.
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/s13421-015-0531-5