Mental Control of Musical Imagery: Comparing Tonal and Song Stimuli

Mental control of musical imagery is a complex but understudied process that consists of 2 components: initiation-whether the musical imagery experience began voluntarily or involuntarily-and management-whether instances of control occur after the experience has begun (e.g., changing the song). The present research examined these 2 components using 11 lab tasks measuring both initiation and management abilities in a sample of 203 undergraduate students. The tasks varied in stimuli composition: 7 tasks used tones and tonal sequences frequently used as stimuli in auditory imagery research, and 4 tasks used stimuli resembling the contents of everyday musical imagery (i.e.. song excerpts). Initiation and management abilities were closely related, and people with greater musical expertise showed a smaller difference between initiation and management ability. Similarly, performance on tasks using tones or tonal sequences and tasks using song stimuli was closely related, and people didn't differ in performance as a function of stimulus type. The present research demonstrates that people's ability to initiate and to manage musical imagery is strongly linked and that people are equally good at controlling relatively simple musical imagery and imagery of well-known songs.