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?
Several ongoing projects in our Music Psychology Lab focus on how music shapes imagination. In essence, we are interested in the diversity of thought types evoked by music, and how thought content is shaped by music-, listener-, and context-level factors.
Our projects span from detailed explorations of auditory features that predict thought content, investigations of how experiences like synaesthesia shape music-evoked narratives, and studies of ongoing thoughts captured in real-life concert settings. These projects utilise state-of-the-art quantitative and qualitative methods, including Natural Language Processing and Music Information Retrieval tools, time series analyses, experimental and Experience Sampling Methods.
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
Curwen, C. (2025). Seeing sound, shaping stories: The role of ideasthesia and event segmentation in musically evoked narratives. Psychology of Music. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356251394985
Wu, W., Margulis, E.H. & Jakubowski, K. (2025, preprint). Music shapes the content of spontaneous thought. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/p9y2k_v4
van der Walle, H. A., Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2026, preprint). Basslines, Bodies, and Beehive Haircuts: What do we think about when we listen to music? osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/z8rfa_v1
Wu, W., Eerola, T., Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2026, preprint). Audio features impact the semantic content of music-evoked thoughts. osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/4hsc8_v1
Funding:
This research is currently funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (PI: Prof Kelly Jakubowski, Co-I: Prof Elizabeth Margulis (Princeton)) and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (PI: Dr Caroline Curwen).
Music & Science 