Anyone who is receptive to music knows its powerful effect on their own emotional state. For many people, however, the sounds also trigger a veritable mental cinema. Certain music apparently catalyses inner images of happy togetherness, as a sophisticated study with more than 600 participants shows. Singing and words were not necessarily required. According to study leader Steffen Herff from the University of Sydney, appropriate music could therefore perhaps be used to support imagining in psychotherapy.
Over the years, the team had repeatedly asked test subjects to close their eyes and visualise themselves walking through a mountain landscape for a minute and a half. Beforehand, all participants watched a soundless 15-second video in which a simple figure moved up an abstract hill. During their own imagination, they then listened to folk music in either Italian, Spanish or Swedish (examples: Nannì, Fager som en ros), or they had to fantasise without acoustic input.
The test subjects then described exactly what they had imagined. The team used computerised speech analysis to identify the content and found that the music had often inspired positive images of community. For example, some had imagined themselves happily walking through the countryside with others or with their family. In the music-free control group, on the other hand, people tended to think of themselves travelling alone. Incidentally, images of cheerful togetherness also emerged when the test subjects did not understand the language at all or when the music was played without lyrics.
In addition, the team used artificial intelligence to generate illustrations from the verbose descriptions. These differed strikingly between the two groups: the inner images of the music listeners, for example, were much more detailed and vivid. The researchers analysed more than 4,000 imaginary journeys in this way. In a second experiment, 60 other participants looked at the illustrations: They were now asked to decide whether the creator of the visual fantasy had listened to music during the imagination or not. In a quiet environment, however, they failed miserably. If, on the other hand, the test subjects listened to the same music, they were more successful. «People can imagine what others might have imagined while listening to music», says cognitive researcher Herff. «That fascinates me.»
