Music and Mental Imagery

In a seminal paper, Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) propose that visual imagery—i.e. experiencing images such as landscapes, people or abstract shapes in one’s mind’s eye—is one of several mechanisms by which music induces emotions in the listener. This claim is supported by evidence showing that 77% of a representative sample report having experienced visual imagery during music listening before (Küssner & Eerola, 2019). However, the exact nature of the link between visual imagery and emotional responses remains unclear. In a recent study (Hashim, Stewart & Küssner, 2020), it was demonstrated that suppressing visual mental imagery during music listening by means of an eye movement task attenuates emotional responses. This finding suggests that visual mental imagery is indeed a cause of music-induced emotions. The goal of the current project is to replicate and strengthen this finding by running further experiments with different imagery suppression protocols to rule out possible effects of general attentional processes on emotion reduction.

Faculty Supervisor:

Steven Vande Moortele

Student:

Partner:

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: