Sometimes when we listen to music we are totally immersed in the sonic environment, other times music evokes mental images of colours and shapes, or even detailed stories and memories. Why do some listening experiences vividly shape our imaginings, and others less so?
We are undertaking a 3-year project funded by the Leverhulme Trust on how music shapes imagination. The aims of the project are to explore:
•What different types of thoughts are evoked by music?
•How are the type of thoughts impacted by features of the music and the listener?
•How are the contents of thoughts impacted by features of the music and the listener?
•Are the contents of different types of music-evoked thoughts (e.g., real memories/fictional stories) shaped by similar constraints?
Publications:
Jakubowski, K., Margulis, E. H., & Taruffi, L. (2024). Music-evoked thoughts: Genre and emotional expression of music impact concurrent imaginings. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 42(1), 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2024.42.1.3
Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2024). Music, memory, and imagination. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 33(2), 108-113. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214231217229
van der Walle, H. A., Wu, W., Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2025). Thoughtscapes in music: An examination of thought types occurring during music listening across 17 genres. Psychology of Music, 03057356251346654. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356251346654
van der Walle, H. A., Wu, W., Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2025). MUSIFEAST-17: MUsic Stimuli for Imagination, Familiarity, Emotion, and Aesthetic STudies across 17 genres. Behavior Research Methods, 57(7), 204. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02724-0
People
Principal Investigator: Kelly Jakubowski, Co-Investigator: Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis (Princeton), Postdoctoral Research Associate: Wei Wu, PhD Student: Hazel van der Walle
Music & Science 