Thesis
Music and Noise Interact to Influence the Vividness and Sentiment of Directed Mental Imagery
Honours, Murdoch University
2023
Abstract
Music enhances clinically relevant characteristics of mental imagery, but the ecological validity of these effects in the presence of disruptive background sounds, such as traffic noise, is unclear. University students (N = 107) completed eight directed imagination trials in response to a brief visual stimulus accompanied by silence, traffic noise, music, and combined music and noise. Participants provided ratings of imagery vividness and written descriptions of imagined content that were analysed for emotional sentiment. A 2 × 2 within-subjects factorial design (music/no music, noise/no noise) revealed both music (d = .923) and noise (d = .846) enhanced imagery vividness compared to silence. Music also increased positive emotional sentiment relative to silence (d = .765), though noise had no effect (d = .020). Noise and music interacted negatively to influence mental imagery vividness (η2 = .084), and sentiment (η2 = .013). The addition of noise to music significantly reduced emotional sentiment compared to music alone (d = .424). Vividness scores in combined music and noise were not significantly different from those in music alone (d = .039) or noise alone (d = .038), even though noise and music independently increased vividness. Findings support the use of music to enhance imagery vividness and sentiment and provide novel insights into the effects of disruptive sound on imagination. These results suggest noise is a powerful modulator of mental imagery vividness, sentiment, and content, and that practitioners should consider how unexpected background sounds might influence outcomes in music and/or imagery therapy.
Details
- Title
- Music and Noise Interact to Influence the Vividness and Sentiment of Directed Mental Imagery
- Authors/Creators
- Joanna Delalande
- Contributors
- Jon Prince (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, Centre for Healthy AgeingSteffen A. Herff (Supervisor) - École Polytechnique Fédérale de LausanneCeren Ayyildiz (Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Honours
- Identifiers
- 991005779521107891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Psychology
- Resource Type
- Thesis
Metrics
34 File views/ downloads
58 Record Views