Download Studying musical imagery: Context and intentionality

Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, August 22-26 2006
Studying musical imagery:
Context and intentionality
Freya Bailes
Sonic Communications Research Group, University of Canberra
Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
[email protected]
the stimuli, and melodic distinctiveness. Results point to the
complementary roles of perceptual exposure and memory
when participants intentionally generate a mental image of
music. Although musical imagery is an intangible phenomenon, this paper argues that by examining converging
evidence it is possible to discern commonalities worthy of
further study. This overview also underlines the changing
nature of imagery experience dependent on the contextual
factors of the intention to image music and musical task.
ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of a conscious ‘inner hearing’ of music,
when this music is not actually present, is known as musical imagery. Of interest to music cognition are when,
where, why, what and how particular music is imaged.
Given the methodological difficulties of imagery research,
these questions have only just begun to be addressed. The
research to date has begun to suggest fruitful areas to explore and useful methods to achieve this. This paper reviews converging evidence of musical imagery experience
from a sampling study, interviews, and laboratory experiments.
Relevant findings from a study that sampled the everyday
occurrence of having a ‘tune on the brain’ are presented
(Bailes, in press) as an introduction to some of the probable factors linked to the occurrence of an involuntary musical image. Analyses highlight the influence of recent exposure to particular music on what is subsequently imaged.
Following this, an experimental study is described which
measured the point of recognition (POR) of 120 melodies
by 32 participants, with the goal of predicting POR as a
function of different subjective measures of familiarity with
Keywords
Musical Imagery; Familiarity; Melodic distinctiveness;
Recognition
INTRODUCTION
Musical imagery is the experience of having a conscious
mental image of the sound of music that is not actually
present. Musical imagery might be experienced during periods of silence, or might be superimposed as a slightly
different mental representation to the actual music during
listening. Moreover, it can occur spontaneously and unintentionally during everyday life as in the experience of a
tune in the ‘mind’s ear’. When this is persistent, it is known
as ‘earworms’. Auditory imagery can also be an involuntary corollary of musical activity, such as anticipating the
next track on an album while listening to music, or working
towards an ideal musical sound in performance based on
internally ‘hearing’ how it should sound. Finally, a mental
image of music might be intentionally brought to mind
when reflecting on a particular piece of music, in the ‘silent’ analysis of musical score, or in composition.
The potential breadth of musical imagery experience, from
the involuntary everyday ‘tune on the brain’ to a deliberate
and functional role in music, renders it both useful but also
challenging as a subject of psychological research. Of in-
In: M. Baroni, A. R. Addessi, R. Caterina, M. Costa (2006) Proceedings
of the 9th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition
(ICMPC9), Bologna/Italy, August 22-26 2006.©2006 The Society for
Music Perception & Cognition (SMPC) and European Society for the
Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM). Copyright of the content of an
individual paper is held by the primary (first-named) author of that paper. All rights reserved. No paper from this proceedings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the paper's primary
author. No other part of this proceedings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without
permission in writing from SMPC and ESCOM.
ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC
805
ICMPC9 Proceedings
erate generation of an auditory image in a melody recognition task.
terest to music cognition are when, where, why, what and
how particular music is imaged. The significant methodological obstacles associated with researching an essentially
private, subjective phenomenon have slowed progress. Researchers have variously asked individuals to report their
imagery experience (Mainwaring, 1932; Retra, 1999), conducted experiments to infer patterns of behavior associated
with imaging sound (Halpern, 1988a, 1988b; Weber &
Brown, 1986; Intons-Peterson, 1992; Repp, 2001), and
applied neuroscientific technologies to examine brain activity during imaging (Zatorre & Halpern, 1993; Zatorre,
Halpern, Perry, Meyer & Evans, 1996; Janata, 2001; Neuhaus, 2001). Methodological challenges for research in
musical imagery are seemingly greater than for visual imagery, which has a long tradition of inquiry. This is partly
because music is more obviously dynamic in its progression through time, and in experimental tasks it requires
sustained mental effort.
Given the difficulties inherent in musical imagery research,
there is a paucity of knowledge concerning imagery for
sound, and in particular, music. However, by beginning to
assemble findings and reports obtained using a variety of
different research methodologies, we might begin to find
converging evidence in response to some of these questions. This is the case for imagery for timbre, where evidence from laboratory experiments (Crowder, 1989; Pitt &
Crowder, 1992; Auhagen & Schoner, 2001; Bailes, 2002;
Halpern, Zatorre, Bouffard & Johnson, 2004), sampling
studies (Bailes, in press a) and interviews (Bailes, 2002)
collectively point to an auditory dimension that is possible
to image, but one which is more prone to be imaged when
it coincides with clear sound source identification, high
familiarity, and when it is subjectively experienced as a
meaningful component of music.
While it is informative to examine a particular problem
using a variety of methodologies, it is also important to
acknowledge different manifestations of musical imagery
in a variety of contexts, and for a variety of roles. Experimental techniques call for the deliberate generation of a
mental image, while sampling techniques are designed to
observe the spontaneous, everyday occurrence of the phenomenon. Research by the author sought to elucidate the
relationship between musical perception and imagery ranging from the everyday ‘tune on the brain’ to the functional
role in specialist musical activity. Sampling methods, case
study, focus group discussion, observation of pedagogical
activity, and laboratory experiments were used to this end
(Bailes, 2002). Converging evidence was found contributing to the aforementioned description of timbral imagery,
and in support of the notion that musical imagery is derived
from perception, functioning in similar and complementary
ways. This paper sets out two contrasting studies as an example of how converging evidence of musical imagery
experience might be assembled. The focus is on the role of
familiarity and melodic distinctiveness in both spontaneous, everyday ‘tune on the brain’ imagery, and in the delib-
ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC
INVOLUNTARY MUSICAL IMAGERY
Method
A sampling study by the author sought to explore the often
involuntary, spontaneous musical imagery of everyday life
(Bailes, in press a, in press b). Eleven music students volunteered to participate in the study, in which they were
signaled on their mobile phones at random times throughout the day, for a period of seven days. At each signal, participants filled out a short experience sampling form which
asked for information about their current activity, location
and mood, and for details of any real or imaged music they
were currently experiencing. Many questions were addressed by the study, which aimed in part to question why
and under what circumstances people (in this instance music students) spontaneously image music.
Results
A total of 417 forms were completed, of which 146 describe imagery episodes. The findings are suggestive: respondents made strong links between the music they had
recently heard, rehearsed or performed, and its consequent
mental re-presentation. 43% of respondents had actually
heard the music they were imaging during the period since
the last signal. An open-ended question asked participants
to reflect on the possible reasons for imaging the music
they experienced. 54 episodes or 51% of responses to this
question can be categorized as ‘having heard the music
previously’ or ‘having analyzed it’. Response categories
and the number of episodes fitting each category can be
seen in Table 1.
Table 1. Reasons for imagining the music
Reasons given
Previously heard or analyzed the
music
Music to be performed
Frequency
21 episodes
Talked about piece
6 episodes
‘No idea’
6 episodes
Person association
4 episodes
‘Sticky’ music/automatic
4 episodes
Other
12 episodes
Total
107 episodes
54 episodes
Respondents were asked to name the music they heard or
imaged when possible. It is interesting to note that they
were significantly better at naming the music they imaged
than the music they were physically exposed to during the
course of the day (χ2 = 41.19; d.f. = 1; p< 0.0005). This
suggests they were highly familiar with the subject of their
imagery. Even the composition students who participated
806
ICMPC9 Proceedings
in the study tended to image music other than their own
compositions, with only 8 out of 123 episodes involving
imagery in composition.
duration of successive pairs of notes, e.g. longer-same)
were calculated from statistical analyses of 16,069 Western
themes and melodies, using Humdrum (Huron, 1994).
These probabilities formed the basis for the measure of
each stimulus melody’s distinctiveness.
Discussion
For the music students in this study, a strong influence of
exposure to music on subsequently imaging that music was
revealed. The question can be taken further to ask whether
mere exposure to music is a sufficient criterion to subsequently hearing it ‘on the brain’. A series of interviews
with professional musicians (Bailes, 2002) reveals that
choruses, hooks and jingles are more likely to be imaged
spontaneously than avant-garde or improvised music recordings. This could be because of the typically greater
exposure and repetition of the former, or it might relate to
the structure of the music itself. The following section addresses the combined role of familiarity and distinctiveness
in the deliberate re-presentation of music in a melodic recognition task.
Procedure
The task was to identify each melody as soon as possible,
by naming it, singing it, or providing enough information
about it to convince the experimenter of successful recognition. The method adapted the gating paradigm (Dalla
Bella, Peretz & Aronoff, 2003), and involved playing the
first note, followed by the first two notes, followed by the
first three notes, etc. (with the rhythm and articulation of
the original melody). Participants were asked to indicate
when (and if) they recognized the melody. They were
given no advanced knowledge of the pool of possible stimuli. Commonly, participants reported imaging a continuation of the opening cue in the case of successful identification. The note at which, in the opinion of the experimenter,
they successfully identified the melody was deemed to be
the POR. Using this procedure, recognition data for 960
cases were collected.
At the end of the melody recognition procedure, participants were asked to provide subjective familiarity estimates
for each of the stimulus melodies, as well as an exposure
estimate (how many times they estimated having heard the
melody during the last 12 months), and a recentness estimate (when was the last time they heard the melody).
As described above (‘Stimuli’), distinctiveness values were
calculated for each note of each stimulus melody. Both
‘momentary distinctiveness’ (for a given note), and ‘accumulated distinctiveness’ (accumulated for all notes up to
and including a given note) measures were used. Separate
distinctiveness values were used for interval, scale degree,
scale-degree dyad, combined pitch information, rhythmic
stress, relative duration-dyad, combined rhythmic information, and combined pitch and rhythmic information.
Using the predictor variables of familiarity and distinctiveness, a dynamic model to predict POR was created. Half
the POR data were used to test the model’s ability to predict 1) that a given listener will not recognize a melody and
2) the POR plus or minus 1 or 2 notes. As a baseline
model, the existing POR data were scrambled and paired
with their unscrambled version, using one case to predict
another.
INTENTIONAL MUSICAL IMAGERY
An experimental study was conducted to predict the point
of recognition (POR) of melodies as a function of different
subjective measures of familiarity and melodic distinctiveness. Listeners were exposed to melodic fragments and
asked to indicate when they recognized a melody. While
the primary concern was not an exploration of musical imagery, the task reportedly evoked an auditory image of the
melodies in question. It was predicted that POR would be
earlier for more familiar melodies, and that it would correlate with melodically ‘distinct’ moments.
Method
Participants
32 volunteers from the Ohio State University community
with a mean age of 27 years participated. Half were music
students, while half had no formal musical training.
Stimuli
Participants were presented with a sub-sample of 120 melodies, played by the experimenter on a synthesizer. The
stimulus melodies comprised traditional folk melodies and
classical music themes. They were selected to ensure that
the familiarity data and the distinctiveness measures of the
melodies would also exhibit a wide variance.
Intuitively, a melody is likely to be recognized sooner
when it comprises a unique or distinctive musical pattern.
For example, the opening notes of Maria from Westside
Story are more distinctive than the opening notes of On
Top of Old Smokey. This concept of distinctiveness can be
formulated in terms of the probability of occurrence of particular musical events within a particular musical tradition.
The probabilities of occurrence for melodic interval, scale
degree, scale-degree dyad (e.g. scale degree 1 followed by
3), rhythmic stress, and relative duration-dyad (relative
ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC
Results
Of those melodies that were recognized, the mean POR
was 5.4 notes with a mode of 4 notes. POR occurred earlier
for more familiar melodies (r = -0.77, p < 0.001). Models
combining subjective familiarity and distinctiveness had
the best predictive accuracy, but tended to perform equally
with respect to either momentary or accumulated distinctiveness. Similarly, there was little difference between models that used pitch- or rhythm-based distinctiveness meas-
807
ICMPC9 Proceedings
ures to predict POR.1 Results point to the complementary
roles of subjective familiarity and the information structure
of the melody when participants intentionally generate a
mental image of music.
is an essentially intangible phenomenon, by triangulating
methods and examining converging evidence it is possible
to discern commonalities worthy of further study, such as
the influence of perceptual exposure and distinctive melodic structure on image formation. However, assumptions
that imagery is equivalent in different contexts should be
challenged. In the first study, respondents reported imagery
that was freely experienced during the course of everyday
life (though see Bailes, in press a, for discussion). No constraints were placed on the type of music to be imaged, nor
on the quality of that experience. Consequently, respondents reported not only aspects of melody, but also song
lyrics, expressive nuance, harmony, timbre and kinesthetic
imagery. It is less likely that the participants in the melody
recognition task mentally represented musical dimensions
beyond the minimal melodic content cued by the isolated
notes on the synthesizer (and probably a mental image of
any associated lyrics). Importantly, imagery experience
depends upon the contextual factors of the intention to image music and musical task. A comprehensive account of
musical imagery should combine ecologically valid methods of exploring the circumstances and nature of spontaneous, everyday imagery, while combining experimental
techniques to elucidate the cognitive constraints of imagery
for sound and music.
COMMONALITIES
The two studies reported in this paper concern very different kinds of mental imagery for music. The first concerns
the mostly involuntary, everyday experience of having a
‘tune on the brain’. The second calls for the intentional
mental representation of melody in response to an auditory
cue. It is not obvious that such different forms of musical
imagery should share the same experiential qualities. Both
the physical and mental contexts of the imagery experience
along with the intention to image music differ greatly.
However, in trying to understand why we spontaneously
image certain music it is informative to investigate what
musical dimensions we are most able to image. For instance, the sampling study of everyday imagery experience
demonstrated that, for music students, a strong association
exists between the music imaged and their familiarity with
that music through exposure to it. In a study that deliberately probed participants’ ability to recognize melody, a
strong relationship was again demonstrated between the
subjective measurement of familiarity, and the speed with
which participants were able to mentally generate an image
for that melody. While it is tautological in a recognition
task to state that recognition is dependent on familiarity, it
is less obvious that music students, including composition
students (who might be expected more than others to generate their own original imagery), unintentionally image
music to which they have been the most exposed and are
the most familiar.
In this paper, familiarity and distinctiveness have been described separately, yet they may be viewed as complementary dimensions of musical experience. In the melodic recognition study, a distinct event has been defined as rarely
occurring in relation to typical structural patterns found in
Western music. Accordingly, a distinct melody is an unusual and schematically less familiar melodic form. When
reflecting on the experience of imaging music, it might
seem that not only highly familiar melodies stick in the
‘mind’s ear’, but also highly distinct events, such as an
unusual timbre or rhythm. A combination of subjective
(personal) familiarity measures with distinctiveness measures (based on an assumed schematic representation of
Western melodies) predicted POR for familiar melodies
with reasonable success.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The sampling study reported in this paper was conducted as
part of my doctoral research at the University of Sheffield,
UK, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research
Board. The melody recognition project was jointly undertaken with Professor David Huron during the author’s postdoctoral fellowship at the Ohio State University (2003-4). I
would like to thank Andrea Halpern and Roger Dean for
their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.
REFERENCES
Auhagen, W., & Schoner, V. (2001). Control of Timbre by
Musicians – A Preliminary Report. In R. I. Godøy & H.
Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical Imagery (pp. 201-217). Lisse:
Swets & Zeitlinger.
Bailes, F. (in press, a). The Use of Experience-Sampling
Methods to Monitor Musical Imagery in Everyday Life.
Musicae Scientiae.
Bailes, F. (in press, b). The Prevalence and Nature of Imagined Music in the Everyday Lives of Music Students. Psychology of Music.
CONCLUSION
Juxtaposing the two studies reported in this paper demonstrates how aspects of imagery experience can be examined
using different methodologies. Although musical imagery
1
Bailes, F. (2002). Musical imagery: Hearing and imagining music. University of Sheffield: PhD thesis.
Crowder, R. G. (1989). Imagery for musical timbre. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and
Performance, 15 (3), 472-478.
Please note that the models and their predictive success are not presented
in detail in this publication.
ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC
808
ICMPC9 Proceedings
Dalla Bella, S., Peretz, I., & Aronoff, N. (2003). Time
course of melody recognition: A gating paradigm study.
Perception & Psychophysics, 65 (7), 1019-1028.
Mountain, R. (2001). Composers and imagery: Myths and
realities. In R. I. Godøy & H. Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical
Imagery (pp. 271-288). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Halpern, A. R. (1988a). Perceived and Imagined Tempos
of Familiar Songs. Music Perception, 6 (2), 193-202.
Neuhaus, C. (2001). Mental Images of Musical Scales. In
R. I. Godøy & H. Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical Imagery (pp.
77-93). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Halpern, A. R. (1988b). Mental Scanning in Auditory Imagery for Songs. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 14
(3), 343-443.
Pitt, M. A., & Crowder, R. G. (1992). The role of spectral
and dynamic cues in imagery for musical timbre. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18, 728-738.
Halpern, A. R., Zatorre, R. J., Bouffard, M., & Johnson, J.
A. (2004). Behavioral and neural correlates of perceived
and imagined musical timbre. Neuropsychologia, 42, 12811292.
Repp, B. H. (2001). Expressive Timing in the Mind’s Ear.
In R. I. Godøy & H. Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical Imagery
(pp. 185-200). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Huron, D. (1994). The Humdrum Toolkit; Reference Manual. Menlo Park, CA: Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities.
Retra, J. (1999). An Investigation into the Musical Imagery
of Contemporary Composers. University of Sheffield: MA
dissertation.
Intons-Peterson, M. J. (1992). Components of Auditory
Imagery. In D. Reisberg (Ed.), Auditory Imagery (pp. 4571). Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Weber, W. J., & Brown, S. (1986). Musical Imagery. Music Perception, 3 (4), 411-426.
Zatorre, R.J., & Halpern, A.R. (1993). Effect of unilateral
temporal-lobe excision on perception and image of songs.
Neuropsychologia, 31 (3), 221-232.
Janata, P. (2001). Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying Auditory Image Formation in Music. In R. I. Godøy
& H. Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical Imagery (pp. 27-47). Lisse:
Swets & Zeitlinger.
Zatorre, R. J., Halpern, A. R., Perry, D. W., Meyer, E., &
Evans, A. C. (1996). Hearing in the Mind’s Ear: A PET
Investigation of Musical Imagery and Perception. Journal
of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8 (1), 29-46.
Mainwaring, J. (1932). Kinaesthetic Factors in the Recall
of Musical Experience. British Journal of Psychology, 23,
284- 307.
ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC
809