AROUSAL, VALENCE AND THE INVOLUNTARY THE INVOLUNTARY

MUSICAL IMAGE

Freya Bailes

Background

• Memory for emotional stimuli is enhanced (e.g. Bradley &

Lang, 2000)Lang, 2000)

• Emotional stimuli: more arousing than neutral stimuli, of

strong valence (positive or negative)

H1: If we have a better memory for positive and negative

arousing music than for neutral music…

… then likely to make its way into our conscious … then likely to make its way into our conscious

experience of involuntary musical imagery (INMI)

Emotional musical imagery?

Voluntary musical imagery

Experiment participants able to indicate the emotion Experiment participants able to indicate the emotion

expressed in imagined music (Lucas, Schubert, & Halpern,

2010)

Q. transfer to INMI?

Involuntary musical imagery (INMI)

INMI during ‘affective states’ (Williamson et al., 2011)

• Themes of ‘Mood’, ‘Emotion’, ‘Stress’, ‘Surprise’

Valence and Arousal

Valence• Positive tone of earworm music and words, experience

described as ‘pleasant’ (Halpern & Bartlett, 2011)described as ‘pleasant’ (Halpern & Bartlett, 2011)

• Association between INMI frequency and its valence (Liikkanen, 2011)

• Positive emotional engagement with music (Beaman & Williams, 2009) and musical preference (Hemming, 2009; Halpern & Bartlett, 2011) associated with subsequent INMI (level of processing?)

• Music students sometimes attributed INMI to liking the particular tune (Bailes, 2007)

Arousal• ‘Entertainment’ factor of INMI (Wammes & Baruss, 2009)

• Mental relaxation and increased physical activity associated with INMI (Hemming, 2009)

• INMI in ‘low attention states’ (Williamson et al., 2011)

Aims

Explore the relationship between involuntary musical

imagery and emotionimagery and emotion

• Using findings from a follow-up of Bailes (2006, 2007)

Caveat. Study not designed to test this relationship

Method

Experience sampling methods to observe the musical

experiences of respondents from the general population experiences of respondents from the general population

(Bailes, 2006)

Participants

• N = 47 (21 male)

• Volunteers from greater Western Sydney & undergraduate

psychology students from University of Western Sydneypsychology students from University of Western Sydney

• aged 18 to 53 years

• Ollen Musical Sophistication Index range 39 – 944

Experience Sampling Form (ESF)

• 2 sides of (A4) sheet of paper to be completed when

messaged (Bailes, 2006)

• Introductory section (date, time contacted, time filled out)

ESF ctd..

Part B

Completed if hearing music at time of contactCompleted if hearing music at time of contact

• Up-dated from Bailes (2006) to include laptops and mp3 players as possible sources of music

• Stylistic categories updated to include trance/house/techno, country, blues, urban (rap, R&B, hip hop) and gospel

Part C

Completed if imagining music at time of contact

• Up-dated with style categories as in Part B• Up-dated with style categories as in Part B

• Questions adapted to accommodate respondents without musical training

• Tempo/Rhythm added as a potentially important element of imagined music

Procedure

• Briefing session: informed consent sought, distribution of

background questionnaire & revised transliminalitybackground questionnaire & revised transliminality

questionnaire

• Participants received pack of 42 ESFs: 1 ESF to be filled

out each time they receive an SMS

• Bulk SMS provider scheduled sending of message

“Please fill out your form” to participants 6 times a day,

over 7 days, between 9am and 9pmover 7 days, between 9am and 9pm

• Quasi-random schedule, with one signal scheduled within

each two-hour time period

• On receipt of SMS, participants to fill out a blank ESF as

soon as possible

Results

1,415 ESFs returned (out of a possible 1,974)

Imagining Music13%

Hearing MusicNo Music

52% Hearing Music31%

Both4%

52%

Musical State and Mood

Multinomial logistic regression analysis

DV: musical state at time of contact (hearing, imagining, neither DV: musical state at time of contact (hearing, imagining, neither hearing nor imagining music)

Predictor variables: ratings along Part A mood pairs

915 cases analysed, omnibus chi-square = 129.86, df = 68,

p < .005

Model accounted for 13.2% - 15.2% of variance

Only Alert/Drowsy (p = .01) and Lonely/Connected (p = .05)

reliably predicted musical state

INMI and Mood

Alert/Drowsy

Being ‘drowsy’ or ‘neither alert nor drowsy’ significantly negative Being ‘drowsy’ or ‘neither alert nor drowsy’ significantly negative predictor of imagining music

Lonely/Connected

‘Quite connected’ ratings significant predictor of imagining music

Energetic/Tired

Being ‘neither energetic nor tired’ significantly negative predictor of imagining music

Happy/SadHappy/Sad

Ratings DO NOT predict imagining music

NB. Similar model coefficients for odds of hearing music (‘drowsy’ and ‘neither energetic nor tired’ as negative predictors)

Imagining music from heard episodes

Degree of choice in heard music

• No correlation with the times subsequently imagined • No correlation with the times subsequently imagined

(rho(164) = .106, p = .17)

• No difference between the reported degree of personal

choice when hearing pieces that were imagined versus

those that were not (U = 866.5, N1 = 152, N2 = 14, p =

.226, two-tailed)

Heard and imagined music mood congruency

All mood pair ratings significantly correlated when

participants hear and imagine the same piece (except for

Alert/Drowsy)

Reasons for imagining particular musicNode References % of references

Recently heard 61 37.7

Don’t know why 19 11.7

Stickiness 11 6.8

TV 7 4.3

Spontaneity 7 4.3

Recently imagined 6 3.7

Value judgement 5 3.1

Musical features 5 3.1

Favourite music 5 3.1Favourite music 5 3.1

Visual cue 4 2.5

Recently sung/played 3 1.9

Imagery on waking 3 1.9

Intentional imaging 3 1.9

Sentimental/nostalgia 3 1.9

Other 20 12.3

Arousal and Valence

It’s annoyingly cheesy

When I exercise I usually listen to When I exercise I usually listen to

music on an ipod shuffle. I didn’t

have it with me today, so I usually

Like the song

I just love it

Maybe because it’s a

It’s annoyingly cheesy

The other girls at work love it, I

dislike it very much

Fun song

have it with me today, so I usually

just hear the same songs in my

head

Maybe because it’s a

favourite song of mine

It was sentimental value

Was the dance/music @ my

wedding

Good song

As cleaning is boring –

it is much easier to

imagine some thing

Bored in class. When

I’m bored I imagine

music. Also at work.

Conclusions

• Mood pairs that vary in arousal (Alert/Drowsy,

Energetic/Tired) predict the likelihood of imagining musicEnergetic/Tired) predict the likelihood of imagining music

• Drowsy respondents, or respondents who are at neither end of the

alert/drowsy and energetic/tired scales are not likely to have been imagining music

• Mood pairs that vary in valence (e.g. Happy/Sad) do not

predict the likelihood of imagining music

• BUT mood congruence at level of specific piece, includes • BUT mood congruence at level of specific piece, includes

Happy/Sad

• Relatively small percentage of affective reasons given for

imagining music, comparable to percentage of codes for

‘affective state’ in Williamson et al. (2011)

Discussion

• ‘Use’ of imagery as emotional self-regulation (comparable

mood as when hearing)?mood as when hearing)?

• Low attention states & INMI in Williamson et al. (2011),

but current respondents ‘quite connected’

• Diffuse attention? Herbert (2011) – absorption and everyday listening experience, trance and earworm characteristics

(repetition)

Q. Do affective associations with ‘real’ life influence our

mental jukebox?

Research Directions

Need to distinguish between…

• Emotion/mood• Emotion/mood

• Combine experience sampling methods with state-trait measures to

explore interactions between mood, personality, and INMI

• Perceived vs. induced emotion

• Emotion of imagined music vs. self during episode

Emotion at encoding of music, of musical content, and at • Emotion at encoding of music, of musical content, and at

retrieval of music

• Develop experiments to compare the induction of affective with neutral music

Acknowledgements

Many thanks for the symposium organization.

Thanks particularly to my stoic respondents, as well as to

postgraduate diploma students Sarah Allen, Vicky Busuttil,

Samar Dawidar and Asma Payara for data collection.