Silent Orchestra: How Missing Mental Imagery Mutes Music’s Reward
While mental imagery and music reward have each been studied extensively, their interrelationship remains poorly understood. Yet several music theories point to imagery as an important driver of music-induced emotion. In turn, imagery is closely linked to working memory, which is also critical for music. We investigate whether individual differences in imagery vividness are related to the capacity to experience musical reward across the general population, and we also compare individuals with and without aphantasia. We show a robust link between mental imagery vividness—particularly in the auditory domain—and sensitivity to musical reward. As music unfolds over time, impaired auditory imagery may weaken the retention of musical sequences in auditory working memory and disrupt the formation of musical expectations, a process critical for music reward.
Date: November 10th, 12:00
Location: Mundet, Seminar Room, Floor 5
and online with the following zoom link:
https://ub-edu.zoom.us/j/91093327900?pwd=GK0hHoXb0UcAqbsbaS9VkaeoOXbzDq.1
Meeting ID: 910 9332 7900
Passcode: 159265