Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain © 2015 American Psychological Association

2015, Vol. 25, No. 1, 58 – 68 0275-3987/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000078

Music in Mind? An Experience Sampling Study of What and When,

Towards an Understanding of Why
Freya Bailes
University of Western Sydney

Imagining music in the course of everyday life is commonplace, and recent studies have begun to reveal
what we imagine, and to ask why. However, research methods that rely on retrospective reports are not
sensitive to the transience of imagined musical experience. In 2007, Bailes used experience sampling
methods instead, to understand the prevalence and nature of imagined music episodes among music
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

students. The current study extends this research to a larger and broader sample of the general public
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(N ⫽ 47, with 1,415 episodes), to determine what people imagine, when, and why. Respondents were
contacted by SMS 6 times a day, for the period of a week. On contact, they filled out an experience
sampling form surveying current location, activity, mood, and details of any musical experience, heard
or imagined. Open questions elicited reasons for imagining particular music, and probed the nature of the
experience. Specific hypotheses linking musical imagery to thought incursions and mood regulation were
tested. A positive relationship between the frequency of imagining music and transliminality was found,
as well as mood congruence between heard and imagined music episodes. Suggestions are made for
further research into the potential influence of chronobiology, arousal, and attention on everyday musical
imagery.

Keywords: musical imagery, experience sampling methods, mood congruence, transliminality, INMI

Imagining music in the course of everyday life has only recently
graduated from anecdote to the subject of scientific investigation.
Although recent empirical studies concern Involuntary Musical
Imagery (INMI, Liikkanen, 2008), or “earworms” that stick or
repeat in mind, this article adopts a broader perspective in its
concern for any form of imagined music that might occur, whether
involuntary or voluntary, persistent or fleeting. An experience
sampling study of university music students’ everyday imaginings
of music (Bailes, 2006, 2007) found that musical imagery occurred
both spontaneously and as an involuntary corollary of a voluntary
musical activity such as performing or thinking about music.
Broader questions of volition arise. Liikkanen (2008) acknowl-
edged the potential importance of voluntary control in “involun-
tary” musical imagery, by conceptually separating activation and
upkeep components; the former occurring outside of attention, and
the latter allowing for mental control. Individual differences in
FREYA BAILES was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the MARCS
Institute, following postdoctoral appointments in France, the United States,
and Australia. These research positions allowed her to build on her long-
standing interest in musical imagery and broaden her interests to the
perception of emotion, and the dynamic analysis of music. Since 2012,
Freya has returned to the United Kingdom to take up her current appoint-
ment as Lecturer in Music at the University of Hull.
Funds for the bulk SMS service were provided by MARCS Auditory
Laboratories. My thanks to Sarah Allen, Victoria Busuttil, Samar Dawidar,
and Asma Payara who collected the data for their PGDiploma research
project. Thank you to Professor Ronan Reilly for statistical guidance.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Freya
Bailes, who is now at the School of Drama, Music and Screen, University
of Hull, Cottingham Road HU6 7RX, United Kingdom. E-mail: F.Bailes@
hull.ac.uk
thought suppression and schizotypy predict experiences of INMI
(Beaman & Williams, 2013). Müllensiefen et al. (2014) found a
relationship between obsessive– compulsive attributes in a non-
clinical population and INMI disturbance and frequency, specu-
lating that deliberate attempts to suppress unwanted INMI might in
fact enhance its occurrence. However, the authors note a potential
weakness with their reliance on retrospective questionnaires,
which might have led to a greater focus on INMI than would occur
with the use of time-sensitive methods such as experience sam-
pling. Consistent with this, Beaty et al. (2013) report a discrepancy
between their own two studies of musical imagery that they
attribute to method: their retrospective questionnaire study re-
vealed a relationship between neuroticism and reports of music
being stuck in the head, whereas their experience sampling study
revealed no such relationship.
There are many reasons to favor experience sampling methods
(ESM) in the study of ephemeral phenomena such as musical
imagery (see Bailes, 2006). Retrospective methods such as ques-
tionnaires and diary studies are particularly prone to memory and
reporting biases, and do not capture fine-grained longitudinal
patterns. Bailes (2007) used ESM to “observe” musical imagery
experiences as they occurred, rather than through retrospective
recall. Respondents filled out an Experience Sampling Form (ESF)
each time they received a signal on their mobile phone. Six signals
were sent each day, at semirandom times throughout the day
(10 a.m.–10 p.m.), for a period of 7 days. The form comprised both
closed and open questions, with the advantage of capturing a quick
snapshot of each episode that could be readily compared with other
episodes by the same individual and other respondents, as well as
capturing qualitative data describing the context and feel of the
episode (qualitative detail that was not recorded in the recent
experience sampling study of musical imagery by Beaty et al.

58
 MUSIC IN MIND: AN EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDY
(2013)). Respondents imagined music on average 35% of the
sampled time, melody and lyrics were rated as the most vivid
components of their mental image, and respondents reported imag-
ining music most when interacting with others, working or trav-
eling. The number of episodes of imagined music dropped in the
final 2-hr time period of the day (8 p.m.–10 p.m.). However, Bailes
(2006, 2007) was limited by a relatively small sample size (N ⫽
11, 417 completed ESFs), but also by a focus on the experiences
of university music students. The aim of the current article is to
expand this earlier research by using the same qualitatively rich
ESM to investigate 47 members of the wider public. It will ask
whether findings from the previous ESM study with music stu-
dents can be generalized to a wider population, and address the
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question of what and when people imagine in everyday life.
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What Do We Imagine?
Regarding what is imagined, people report imagining music that
is familiar to them (Bailes, 2007), a form of memory (Halpern &
Bartlett, 2011), although a minority imagine their own composed
music (Bailes, 2006, 2007; Beaty et al., 2013; Liikkanen, 2008).
Earworms are supposedly annoying, but research suggests
rather that INMI experiences are generally neutral or positively
valenced (Beaman & Williams, 2010, 2013; Beaty et al., 2013;
Halpern & Bartlett, 2011; Liikkanen, 2012; Williamson, Liik-
kanen, Jakubowski, & Stewart, 2014).
Why we mentally accompany our everyday lives with music
remains a perplexing question. One possible trigger is having
recently heard it (Brown, 1999; Halpern & Bartlett, 2011; Hyman
et al., 2013; Liikkanen, 2009; Williamson et al., 2012). In the
experience sampling study of Bailes (2006, 2007), 58% of imagery
episodes named recently hearing or performing the music as the
possible reason for subsequently imagining it. Indeed, 43% of
imagery episodes were of music that had been heard since the
previous time of contact. The current study aims to compare the
apparent impact of hearing music on imagining it for music stu-
dents with the general population. This was a similar aim of Beaty
et al. (2013), who contrasted the experience of a group of musi-
cians (music majors) with nonmusicians (other students). They
found that listening to music predicted the likelihood of imagining
music, and musicians reported musical imagery more frequently
than the nonmusician sample. The current study extends their
shorter experience sampling survey to additionally compare the
contents of heard and imagined music and to gather more detailed
information about the mood of respondents (see below). It is of
considerable interest to understand the relationship between heard
and imagined musical experience, in part because of the contextual
factors that distinguish them, including the apparent external ver-
sus internal locus of control.
Individual Differences Imagining Music
Recent research has drawn parallels between the characteristics
of mind wandering and spontaneously imagining music (William-
son et al., 2014). For example, Hyman et al. (2013) found that
“intrusive songs” occurred under the same conditions of cognitive
load as mind wandering. An important feature of Herbert’s (2011)
phenomenological account of everyday listening is the diffuse
attention described by listeners. Such an account resonates partic-
59
ularly strongly with the experience of imagining music too, and
Williamson et al. (2012) found that in their qualitative analysis of
INMI accounts, low or diffuse attention states were commonly
identified. One way to conceptualize fluctuating experiences of
conscious awareness is in terms of the psychological construct
“transliminality,” akin to the permeability of a psychological mem-
brane between conscious and unconscious awareness (Wammes &
Baruss, 2009). Wammes and Baruss (2009) found that those with
a high score on Thalbourne’s “Transliminality Scale” (Lange,
Thalbourne, Houran, & Storm, 2000), indicative of a greater
propensity for thoughts to cross in and out of conscious awareness,
also scored highly on the dimensions of imagery persistence and
distraction in a factor analysis of responses to a musical imagery
questionnaire.
The current study is novel in testing the hypothesis of an
association between transliminality and the frequency of imagin-
ing music using time-sensitive ESM rather than a retrospective
questionnaire. However, it was also expected that not all music is
equally susceptible to becoming a thought incursion. In addition to
questions of musical characteristics that may lend themselves more
or less to thought incursion, it was expected that music with which
individuals choose to engage would be more likely to be imagined
than music that was less significant for the respondent. Conse-
quently, the current study also tested the hypothesis of a positive
relationship between imagining music and reports of actively
choosing to hear it. Retrospective reports using interviews, diary
studies, and questionnaires, suggest that musical experience is
positively related to INMI (Beaman & Williams, 2010; Liikkanen,
2008, 2012; Müllensiefen et al., 2014; Williamson & Jilka, 2014),
though this need not be through formal music training (Beaman &
Williams, 2010; Halpern & Bartlett, 2011), as a link has been
found between INMI and singing and listening to music (Müllen-
siefen et al., 2014).
Mood Congruent Imagery
In Bailes (2007), respondents were asked to rate their mood at
each imagery episode. Rating scales were for positivity (happy–
sad, relaxed–tense), present-mindedness (interested– bored,
involved– detached, connected–lonely), and arousal (alert–
drowsy, energetic–tired). Overall, ratings were above the midpoint
for positivity and arousal during these episodes, but as no compa-
rable mood ratings were obtained for nonimagery episodes, such
data are difficult to interpret. Perhaps there is an effect of mood
congruence (Mayer, McCormick, & Strong, 1995) in operation for
imagined music, with the mood experienced when hearing partic-
ular music matched by that experienced when imagining it. In
other words, does the way an individual feels when hearing music
match how they feel when imagining it? To date, there has been no
measure of mood congruence between specific instances of heard
and imagined music (though Williamson et al., 2012 report ac-
counts of mood and INMI match). The current study extends this
past work, by measuring mood for every sampled episode, not just
when respondents imagine music. Mood congruence between
heard and imagined music episodes could be indicative of the use
of imagined music as an emotion-regulation strategy. For example,
individuals wishing to increase their positive affective state might
imagine a song that makes them happy. Beaty et al. (2013) asked
ESM respondents to report the extent that they were happy, sad, or
 60 BAILES
worried during imagery episodes. They found that when people
felt happy, they reported deliberately imagining music. Emotion
regulation can also operate to maintain or decrease a particular
emotional state (Koole, 2009). The current study investigates
whether one of the many possible reasons to imagine music during
the course of daily life is to regulate mood. That is not to say that
evidence of mood congruence between heard and imagined music
episodes can be interpreted as emotion regulation, as the impact of
inadvertently imagining music might well be to unintentionally
affect one’s mood. However, as emphasized by Västfjäll, Juslin,
and Hartig (2012), listening to music to boost well-being is inex-
pensive, amenable to personalization, portable, and potentially
independent of time and location. These qualities are only in-
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creased by moving away from a reliance on actual music, to the
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realm of the imagination.
In summary, the current study aims to extend Bailes (2006,
2007) to a broader and larger sample than the music students who
responded to the original survey. ESM are used to gain a rich
cross-sectional and longitudinal understanding of the context and
qualia of imagining music in everyday life, captured in real-time,
circumventing retrospective reporting biases. It was expected that,
just as for music students, the broader sample of respondents
would cite recently hearing familiar music as a principal reason for
subsequently imagining it. The study also sought to begin to
understand why we imagine music in everyday life, by exploring
the hypothesis that people might imagine music as a form of
emotion regulation, and that high transliminality scores relate to
the frequency of imagining music, indicating a propensity for
musical thoughts to frequently cross into conscious awareness.
Method
ESM were used to observe the musical experiences of respon-
dents from the general population. The method closely followed
that used by Bailes (2006).
Participants
The first group of participants included 27 volunteers from
greater Western Sydney, Australia, who were recruited by word of
mouth or via an announcement on a social networking site. Par-
ticipation was not remunerated, and a condition for participation
was the possession of a mobile phone. The sample ranged in age
from 18 to 53 years (M ⫽ 25) and included 12 men. Participants
ranged in their Ollen Musical Sophistication Index (OMSI) from
39 to 944 (M ⫽ 187). Twenty of 27 respondents returned fewer
than the total possible number of ESFs, but unless otherwise
stated, their partial data are included in the analyses.
The second group of participants included 20 undergraduate
psychology students from the University of Western Sydney, who
participated in the study in exchange for course credit. A condition
for participation was the possession of a mobile phone. The sample
ranged in age from 18 to 38 years (M ⫽ 22) and included nine
men. Participants had an OMSI between 11 and 596 (M ⫽ 97).
Eighteen of 20 respondents returned fewer than the total possible
number of ESFs, but unless otherwise stated, their partial data are
included in the analyses.
Materials
Experience sampling form. An ESF was devised for partic-
ipants to complete when messaged (see Appendix). As in Bailes
(2006), the ESF occupied two sides of a sheet of paper, and
comprised an introductory section asking for the date, time con-
tacted, and time filled out. Subsequent questions directed partici-
pants to the section(s) of the form to fill out if they were hearing,
imagining, or hearing and imagining music at the time of contact.
In all cases, participants were required to answer part A, asking
about mood at the time of contact, location, main activity, and the
presence of others.
Part B of the ESF was to be completed if participants were
hearing music at the time of contact. This section was up-dated
from Bailes (2006) to include laptops and MP3 players as possible
sources of the music. Stylistic categories to describe the heard
music were also updated, to include trance/house/techno, country,
blues, urban (rap, R&B, hip hop), and gospel.
Changes to Part C, to be completed when imagining music,
include the same stylistic category updates as for Part B. Since
Bailes (2006, 2007) devised an ESF appropriate for music stu-
dents, the current study had to make a number of changes to
accommodate respondents without any musical training. Accord-
ingly, when asking respondents to rate how sharp their mental
image of various musical elements might be, harmony and texture
were excluded. Timbre was expressed as “Instruments/Voice,”
“dynamics” were expressed as “loudness,” and “expression” was
altered to “emotion/expression.” Finally, “Tempo/Rhythm” was
added as a potentially important musical element. A question from
Bailes (2006, 2007) about the physical memory of playing the
imagined music was removed from the current ESF.
Revised Transliminality Scale. The revised transliminality
scale (Lange et al., 2000) was administered, comprising 17 state-
ments requiring a true or false answer.
Background questionnaire. A background questionnaire col-
lected demographic information about the participants (age, gen-
der) and recorded details of any self-reported hearing impairment.
Remaining questions were taken from the OMSI (Ollen, 2006,
2009), which is designed to classify participants as more
(score ⬎500) or less (score ⬍500) musically sophisticated (scale
0 –1000).
Procedure
The study was conducted in two rounds, corresponding to the
participant groups described above. The procedure was identical
for each round. Participants attended a briefing session in which
the study requirements were explained, and informed consent was
sought (study approved by the University of Western Sydney
Human Research Ethics Committee, H6930). The background
questionnaire was administered followed by the revised translimi-
nality questionnaire.
In line with Bailes (2006, 2007), participants were given a pack
of 42 ESFs, comprising one form to be filled out each time they
received an SMS from the researchers (6 contact times ⫻ 7 days).
The researchers noted any specific times over the coming testing
week at which participants would not be able to respond to SMS
cues. As discussed in Bailes (2006), a week is taken to incorporate
the activities the participants would typically experience during
both week days and weekends, for a wide range of possible
 MUSIC IN MIND: AN EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDY
musical imagery patterns. Participants were instructed to set the
SMS reception signal of their phone to a nonmusical cue, to avoid
artificially priming a musical image of the signal.
A bulk SMS provider (AMD Telecom A.E.) was used to sched-
ule the sending of the message “Please fill out your form” to
participants six times a day, over a period of a week (7 days),
between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. The schedule was quasi-random, with
one signal scheduled to occur at any point within each 2-hr time
period.
On receipt of the SMS, participants were to fill out a blank ESF
as soon as possible, answering questions with respect to the time
of contact, rather than the time of filling out the form. The ESF
included space to note both of these times, in case of discrepancy.
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Analysis
Descriptive statistics of the dataset use all submitted ESF data,
from all completed ESFs. More detailed analyses exclude any
episodes that were reported more than 30 min after the time of
signal, as their content could not be considered to provide a
reliable account of the specific characteristics of the experience.
Results
Respondents returned a median of 34 complete ESFs (range
1– 42), for a total of 1,415 ESFs (out of a possible 1,974). Seven-
teen percent of these episodes were reports of imagining music.
Most episodes involved “no music” (52%), with 35% accompanied
by the presence of music (either heard music alone (31%), or heard
and imagined music concurrently (4%)). There were considerable
interindividual differences in the time reported in each state. In-
dividuals varied most on the proportion of episodes in which they
experienced both heard and imagined music at the same time
(coefficient of variation, CV1 ⫽ 1.25). There was also consider-
able individual difference with respect to the proportion of imag-
ery episodes reported (CV ⫽ 1.01), but less for heard (CV ⫽ 0.57)
and no music episodes (CV ⫽ 0.44).
What Do We Imagine?
A series of analyses was performed to investigate links between
the music that respondents heard and imagined. These analyses
begin to explore why people imagine music, by focusing on the
potential impact of having heard music on subsequently imagining
it. Considering only those ESFs that respondents claimed to have
filled out within 30 min of receiving the SMS cue, a recency effect
was found whereby music that had actually been heard since the
previous cue was imagined 38% of the time. An examination of
items and artists who were either heard or imagined more than
once, found no evidence for a linear relationship between the
number of times that they were heard and imagined (Items:
r(15) ⫽ ⫺.097; Artists: r(26) ⫽ ⫺.143).
Relating to what music people imagine, a paired t test (two-
tailed) of the proportion of episodes in which respondents could
name the music shows that significantly more imagined music
(M ⫽ 66%) was named than heard music (M ⫽ 55%), t(37) ⫽
2.03, p ⬍ .00052, confirming previous findings (Bailes, 2007) that
the perceptual source of the imagined music is highly familiar. It
was thought that music that respondents actively choose to hear
61
would be more likely to be imagined. However, a correlation
between personal choice rating and times imagined did not reach
significance, r(164) ⫽ .106, p ⫽ .17. Moreover, there was no
difference in personal choice rating between heard pieces that
respondents imagined versus not (U ⫽ 866.500, N1 ⫽ 152, N2 ⫽
14, p ⫽ .226, two-tailed).
Respondents were asked to explain, if possible, why they might
have been imagining particular music. Table 1 summarizes re-
sponses to this question, showing that having recently heard the
music was the most common answer (38%), while the next most
common answer was not knowing why (12%).
Those who reported responding to the SMS within 30 min of its
receipt were able to name on average 66% of the music featured in
their imagery episodes. One hundred twenty-five different musical
items were named, and only four of these (3%) were imagined on
multiple occasions, indicative of the great variety of music imag-
ined by the respondents of this study. Of the four items imagined
on multiple occasions, three were imagined by more than one
respondent (see Table 2). Although the recurrence of imagining the
same item between and within respondents was rare, there was
more commonality with respect to the artists who were imagined
on multiple occasions. As can be seen in Table 3, 11 artists were
imagined more than once, with nine of those imagined by different
respondents. The study was conducted shortly after the death of
Michael Jackson, meaning that his music was widely played, and
explaining the relatively large number of respondents (six) imag-
ining his songs. What is perhaps more surprising is that none of the
reported Michael Jackson imagery episodes were of the same song.
Eight respondents imagined their own composition (four male,
OMSI 42–248), for a median of 21% of episodes. A Mann–
Whitney test revealed that there was no statistically significant
difference in the OMSI scores of those who reported imagining
their own compositions compared with those who didn’t (U ⫽
138.5, N1 ⫽ 35, N2 ⫽ 8, p ⫽ .96, two-tailed).
In order to understand the phenomenological experience of how
complete the musical image was, only descriptions of episodes
purportedly recorded within 30 min of receiving the SMS were
considered. Of these imagery episodes, the vast majority described
a repeated fragment (40 episodes), a fragment (12), being repeated
(4), a repeated line (3), or a repeated section (2). The word “loop”
was often employed, as in “I heard the theme in a loop,” “I heard
the beginning of the tune and lyrics in a loop.” This predominant
experience was contrasted by many reports of music playing as a
whole piece (21 episodes), and “I was singing it in my head from
beginning to end.” Indeed, one participant described imagined
music that was not so much quantitatively complete, but qualita-
tively so, “I heard the entire theme, all instruments and harmony
very clear, then back.” Another explained “for a moment I was
there with the music—very full in mind.”
To compare the current study with the experiences of the music
student sample in Bailes (2007), one question on the ESF asked
respondents to rate how sharp their mental image of the melody,
lyrics (if appropriate), instruments/voice, tempo/rhythm, loudness,
1
The coefficient of variation divides the standard deviation by the mean,
providing a normalized measure of dispersion.
2
This analysis excluded 10 participants with no instances of either heard
or imagined music being reported within 30 min of the cue.
 62 BAILES

Table 1 Table 3
References to Different Reasons for Imagining the Music Artists Imagined More Than Once

Node References % of references Artist Number of episodes Number of respondents

Recently heard 61 37.7 Michael Jackson 7 6

Don’t know why 19 11.7 Beyonce 4 4
Stickiness 11 6.8 Akon 4 3
TV 7 4.3 Jordin Sparks 4 3
Spontaneity 7 4.3 Pink 4 3
Recently imagined 6 3.7 Australian All Stars 4 1
Value judgment 5 3.1 The Dubliners 4 1
Musical features 5 3.1 Britney Spears 2 2
Favorite music 5 3.1 Lady Gaga 2 2
Visual cue 4 2.5 Kings of Leon 2 2
Recently sung/played 3 1.9 ACDC 2 2
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Imagery on waking 3 1.9

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Intentional imagining 3 1.9

Sentimental/nostalgia 3 1.9
Other 20 12.3
and emotion/expression was. A one-way ANOVA comparing the
ratings for each of these features was significant, F(5, 190) ⫽ 3.66,
M ⫽ 4.72, p ⬍ .005. The results are plotted in Figure 1, and this
ordering of the features is in line with results from Bailes (2007),
except that the current study included a question about mental
imagery for tempo and/or rhythm, and lyrics and instruments/voice
(named as timbre for the music students of the previous study)
have swapped positions. As can be seen, “tempo and/or rhythm”
was rated as being above average sharpness, and tempo and
rhythm were named as predominant features of the imagery of
some respondents, with comments such as “syncopation from bass
and drums,” “it is very dynamic, groovy music,” “It’s a joyful,
swinging tune,” and “just the beat and rhythm.”
Individual Differences Imagining Music
To test the association between transliminality and the fre-
quency of imagining music, a one-tailed Pearson’s correlation was
performed between respondents’ proportion of reported imagery
episodes and their transliminality score. This revealed a positive
relationship (r(43) ⫽ .25, p ⫽ .05), supporting the hypothesis.3
In order to determine the relationship between contextual factors
and respondents’ musical state at the time of contact (hearing
music, imagining music, both hearing and imagining music, nei-
ther hearing nor imagining music), a multinomial logistic regres-
sion analysis was run, with musical state at the time of contact as
the dependent variable. Predictor variables entered into the model
included time of day (coded as six discrete 2-hr periods), location
at the time of contact, activity at the time of contact, interaction
(alone or with others), and the respondents’ gender. This analysis
Table 2
Items Imagined More Than Once
Number of Number of
Name of item Artist episodes respondents
Battlefield Jordin Sparks 4 3
Criss Cross Australian All Stars 4 1
Sweet dream Beyonce 3 3
Beautiful Akon 3 2
served to check whether previous findings relating to music stu-
dents (Bailes, 2007) might be generalized to the wider population.
A total of 1,253 cases were analyzed and the full model signifi-
cantly predicted musical state (omnibus chi-square ⫽ 174.38, df ⫽
57, p ⬍ .005). The model accounted for between 13% and 14.5%
of the variance.
Time of day did not reliably predict overall musical state. Nor
did the presence or absence of others. Although the location of
respondents at the time of contact (p ⬍ .02) and their activity at the
time (p ⬍ .005) were significant predictors of overall musical
state, model coefficients for location and activity while imagining
did not support the previous finding (Bailes, 2007) of an associa-
tion between imagining music and being in transit or traveling.
The gender of the respondents was significantly related to their
musical state (p ⬍ .005). An analysis of model coefficients re-
vealed that the likelihood of imagining music compared with
neither hearing nor imagining music increased significantly for
men. The likelihood of imagining music also increased signifi-
cantly between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. compared with “no music”
contexts.
The incidence of both hearing and imagining music at the same
time was small (4%), and its odds were found to decrease signif-
icantly when respondents were working, interacting with others,
being at leisure, watching TV, or simply “being,” compared with
neither hearing nor imagining music (p ⬍ .005).
A significant correlation was found between respondents’ age
and proportion of imagery episodes (out of each participant’s total
reported episodes; rs (43) ⫽ .37, p ⫽ .02). The proportion of
imagery episodes recorded for each individual was correlated with
various measures of musical engagement, to determine whether
musical background might shape the experience of imagining
music in everyday life. No significant correlation was found be-
tween imagery proportion and years of private music lessons (rs
(42) ⫽ .01, p ⫽ .57). However, years of practice was positively
correlated with reported proportion of imagery episodes (rs (42) ⫽
.30, p ⫽ .05). Those who were categorized as “more musically
sophisticated” by the more comprehensive OMSI (score ⬎500)
reported a significantly greater proportion of imagery (M ⫽
3
To rule out artefacts relating to few ESF returns, those individuals who
returned a total of 7 or fewer complete ESFs were excluded from the
analysis.
 MUSIC IN MIND: AN EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDY 63

35.75%) than those categorized as “less musically sophisticated” Table 4

(M ⫽ 19.79%; U ⫽ 18.5, N1 ⫽ 4, N2 ⫽ 29, p ⫽ .025, two-tailed)4. Correlations Between Mood Ratings for Items That Were Both
Heard and Imagined
Musical Imagery and Mood
Correlation for Correlation for
To test for mood congruence when hearing and imagining the imagined item with imagined item with
Mood pair same heard item different heard item
same music, ratings of mood when individuals heard and imagined
the same piece were significantly correlated (with the exception of Alert/Drowsy .425 .948ⴱⴱ
the mood pair alert/drowsy), suggesting a mood congruent effect Happy/Sad .951ⴱⴱ .713ⴱ
Lonely/Connected .774ⴱ .649
(see Table 4). To ensure that this was specific to the piece of
Energetic/Tired .761ⴱ .753ⴱ
music, the mood ratings for the imagined item were correlated with Involved/Detached .716ⴱ .162
a different randomly selected heard item for these participants. Tense/Relaxed .805ⴱ .225
Although there was some evidence of consistency in the mood of Interested/Bored .739ⴱ .595
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

respondents when hearing and imagining any music, correlations Note. df ⫽ 5.

ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .0005.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

existed for a minority of mood ratings only (see Table 4), suggest-
ing that there is a degree of consistency of mood within individuals
across time when hearing and imagining music, but that this is
greater when the music is the same.
In order to understand any relationship of mood to respondents’
musical state (hearing music, imagining music, neither hearing nor
imagining music), a second multinomial logistic regression analysis
was run, again using musical state at the time of contact5 as the
dependent variable. Predictor variables entered into the model were
ratings along the mood pairs that featured in Part A of the ESF,
namely, Alert/Drowsy, Happy/Sad, Lonely/Connected, Energetic/
Tired, Involved/Detached, Tense/Relaxed, and Interested/Bored. This
exploratory analysis enables an initial investigation into when and
why people might imagine music (i.e., what is their mood?) through
comparison with the two alternative music states of “hearing music”
or “experiencing no music.” A total of 915 cases were analyzed and
the full model significantly predicted musical state (omnibus chi-
square ⫽ 129.86, df ⫽ 68, p ⬍ .005). The model accounted for
between 13.2% and 15.2% of the variance.
Only ratings of the mood pairs Alert/Drowsy (p ⫽ .01) and Lonely/
Connected (p ⫽ .05) reliably predicted global musical state. An
analysis of the coefficients revealed that ratings of “drowsy” or
“neither alert nor drowsy” were negative predictors of imagining
music. This means that respondents were unlikely to be imagining
music when they felt either drowsy or not alert. A rating of “quite
connected” significantly predicted imagining music. Feeling “neither
energetic nor tired” (Energetic/Tired mood pair) was a significantly
negative predictor of imagining music.
Model coefficients relative to the likelihood of actually hearing
music reveal a similar pattern to those for imagining music: once
again, reports of being “drowsy” or “neither energetic nor tired” were
significantly negative predictors for hearing music.
It might be that the quality of imagined music, rather than its
frequency, relates to mood. To test whether respondents’ mood pre-
dicted the sharpness of their musical imagery, the ratings for the
sharpness of each musical parameter were averaged to produce a
mean sharpness rating, against which mood ratings recorded during
the episode were regressed in a multiple regression analysis (see Table
5 for a correlation matrix of these variables). Using the enter method,
a significant model emerged: F(7, 154) ⫽ 3.776, p ⫽ .001. This
model explains 10.8% of the variance (Adjusted R2 ⫽ .108). Table 6
gives information for the predictor variables entered into the model.
Two of the three mood ratings that relate to present-mindedness (see
Bailes, 2007), namely, Interested/Bored and Involved/Detached, were
significant predictors of imagery sharpness. However, these ratings do
not align in their predictions, as sharpness increased with ratings of
interest, but tended to decrease with ratings of involvement.
Discussion
The current research extends the ESM study by Bailes (2006, 2007)
on music students’ everyday experiences of imagining music to a
larger sample of the general public. The results will first be discussed
in terms of the similarities and differences between these two different
populations, before focusing on what respondents imagined, and
beginning to ask why, considering how the findings support the
concept of emotion regulation through musical imagery, and the
possible roles of attention and arousal in musical imagination.

Similarities and Differences

In common with Bailes (2006, 2007), imagined music was mostly
familiar to the respondents, as evidenced by the proportion of imag-

Figure 1. Mean sharpness ratings of dimensions of the musical image,
averaged across all respondents, with standard error bars. The range is from
1 ⫽ absent, to 7 ⫽ very sharp. Lyrics were only rated if respondents
imagined a song.
4
Note that there were no significant differences in the total number of
ESFs completed between these two OMSI groups (p ⫽ .14).
5
The proportionally few cases of both hearing and imagining music at
the same time were excluded from this analysis, as their inclusion led to
errors of quasi-complete separation.
 64 BAILES

Table 5
Correlation Matrix for Mean Image Sharpness and Mood Pair Ratings

Sharpness Alert/Drowsy Happy/Sad Lonely/Connected Energetic/Tired Involved/Detached Tense/Relaxed Interested/Bored

Sharpness 1.00 .264 .194 .152 .224 .159 .032 .333

Alert/Drowsy 1.00 .579 .176 .684 .567 ⫺.096 .569
Happy/Sad 1.00 .312 .517 .456 .264 .529
Lonely/Connected 1.00 .199 .364 .213 .300
Energetic/Tired 1.00 .552 .046 .596
Involved/Detached 1.00 .050 .671
Tense/Relaxed 1.00 ⫺.028
Interested/Bored 1.00
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ined music that could be named (66%). Once again, the most common to explicitly think about music, and lesser reflection about the music
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

reason participants gave for imagining specific music was having that is both actually heard in the environment and also imagined. The
recently heard it (38%), even though this reason featured less fre- data from the current study support the latter, with a low conscious
quently than for the music students of the earlier study (46%). As awareness as to why respondents were imagining music: 12% of
before, respondents imagined a large variety of different music, with imagery episode responses indicated that the respondents “don’t know
very little overlap from one episode to another. Current respondents why” they were imagining that music, while half of that proportion
rated the sharpness of aspects of the imagined sound very similarly to (6%) had “no idea” in the earlier study of music students (Bailes,
the music students of Bailes (2007), with melody the most sharp 2007).
dimension and loudness the least sharp dimension. Music students of Beyond differences that seem to relate to the musical experience of
the earlier study gave free descriptions of rhythmic characteristics of the populations sampled, some unexpected differences emerged. In
their imagery episodes, prompting the addition of a rating scale for Bailes (2007), traveling was associated with more imagined music
tempo/rhythm in the current study. Respondents rated its sharpness than heard music, whereas in the current study, there was no signif-
above average, suggesting that tempo/rhythm is an important feature icant relationship between participants traveling and their musical
in imagined music. As before, respondents tended to imagine repeat- state. MP3 players have become ubiquitous since the earlier study,
ing fragments or loops of music. However, a substantial number of making their use during travel quite likely, while respondents might
imagery episodes involved the “hearing” of a whole piece of music, not have had such a rich source of portable music in Bailes (2007),
from start to finish. We cannot know whether participants were with participants instead imagining music. The finding in Bailes
imagining long musical passages voluntarily or involuntarily, but (2007) of a relationship between musical state (hearing, imagining, no
studies of everyday INMI that limit their scope to repetitive “ear- music) and being in the presence or absence of others was hard to
worm” phenomena, cannot account for imagining all the way through explain, and has not been replicated here (see also Beaty et al., 2013).
a piece in this way. However, the failure to replicate these two findings might be attrib-
Music students are likely to be highly engaged with music in their utable to low statistical power, which could be determined in future
everyday lives. Those in Bailes (2006, 2007) reported experiencing an work.
average of 35% imagery episodes (47% heard music episodes) while In the earlier study, the proportion of imagined music stayed fairly
the broader sample of the current study report a much lower propor- constant throughout the day, with a drop-off coinciding with an
tion of 17% imagery episodes (35% heard music). It is remarkable increase in actually hearing music at the end of the day. In the current
that this current percentage of imagery episodes is identical to that study, a different pattern emerged, since between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.,
found by Beaty et al. (2013), who also used experience sampling the likelihood of imagining music relative to experiencing no music
methods to derive their measure. Candidate reasons for the lower was significantly higher. Because the respondents comprised mem-
proportion of imagined music across this broader cross-section of the bers of the general public rather than the exclusively student popula-
public might include hearing (and performing) less music resulting in tion sampled in Bailes (2007), their activity levels in the morning
a lower potential for material to “get stuck” in the mind, fewer reasons (e.g., going to work) could expose them to many potential triggers to
imagining music by this time. It is plausible that typically high
wakefulness at this time of day (Dijk & Lockley, 2002) in conjunction
Table 6
with exposure to triggers might have combined to raise imagined
Regression Coefficients for the Mood Pair Variables Included in
activity at this time. The odds of imagining music compared with
the Model of Imagery Sharpness
hearing music or experiencing no music were higher for men than for
Variable B SE B ␤ women in the current study. However, this finding may result from a
skew in the data, as one male respondent reported many episodes of
Alert/Drowsy 0.20 0.11 0.21 imagining (63% of 41 completed ESFs).
Happy/Sad ⫺0.09 0.13 ⫺0.07
Lonely/Connected 0.10 0.09 0.09
Energetic/Tired ⫺0.01 0.10 ⫺0.01 Individual Differences
Involved/Detached ⫺0.23 0.12 ⫺0.21ⴱ
Tense/Relaxed 0.08 0.09 0.07 As respondents increased in age, the proportion of imagery epi-
Interested/Bored 0.38 0.12 0.37ⴱⴱ sodes that they reported also increased. However, it is possible that
ⴱ ⴱⴱ
p ⫽ .06. p ⫽ .001. this can be accounted for by the positive correlation between age and
 MUSIC IN MIND: AN EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDY
years of music practice (r(42) ⫽ .28, p ⫽ .03, one-tailed); a variable
that also related to the proportion of imagery episodes reported.
Substantial differences were found between individuals in the propor-
tion of time that they heard music, imagined music, or were in a “no
music” state. Respondents varied twice as much in the amount of time
spent imagining music as hearing music or being without music.
Individual differences with respect to what was being imagined were
also apparent, with only four out of 125 imagined songs being
imagined by more than one individual.
More musically sophisticated respondents (categorized using the
OMSI) reported a greater proportion of musical imagery than others
(see also Beaty et al., 2013). It is noteworthy that although formal
musical training did not relate to the incidence of imagining music (cf.
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Müllensiefen et al., 2014), engagement through music practice, and
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the composite measure (i.e., the OMSI) of formal musical training,
informal music experience, and musical engagement did. This is
further evidence (Beaman & Williams, 2010; Beaty et al., 2013;
Müllensiefen et al., 2014) for the view that it is exposure to music, and
the degree to which it is valued that is associated with spontaneous
endogenous musical representation. Irrespective of musical back-
ground, individuals reported imagining their own music. Future re-
search could usefully investigate the creative potential of everyday
musical imaginings, as even those without formal musical experience
report composing original music in mind. Indeed, there is evidence to
suggest that musical training is less important than the personality
attribute of “openness” when it comes to the everyday generation of
original musical imagery (Beaty et al., 2013).
Mood, Arousal, and Attention
Respondents’ musical state (hearing music, imagining music, not
experiencing music) related to their ratings along the mood scales of
alert/drowsy and lonely/connected. A closer analysis of mood in
relation to only imagery episodes revealed that mood pairs that vary
in arousal (alert/drowsy, energetic/tired) predict the likelihood of
imagining music. Specifically, 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. It is noteworthy that
ratings of mood pairs that vary in positivity (e.g., happy/sad) did not
predict the likelihood of imagining music. However, looking at the
level of specific pieces of music, the correlation between happy/sad
ratings for heard and imagined episodes is evidence in support of
mood congruence. Note that mood congruence here merely describes
commonalities in mood when hearing and imagining the same piece
of music, without stipulating that imagining a particular piece will
make one feel the same way as when that music is heard, or vice
versa. Although mood congruence might suggest the use of musical
imagery as an emotion-regulation strategy, going some way toward
answering the question of why we imagine music, no causal direction
can be inferred from a correlation. There were other parallels between
the mood of participants when hearing and imagining music: the same
relationship between arousal and musical experience was found for
heard musical episodes as for imagined musical episodes, with par-
ticipants less likely to be hearing music than to be experiencing no
music when they felt drowsy, or neither energetic or tired. Further
research is needed to determine whether people imagine music in
order to regulate their emotional state. Participants volunteered a
relatively small percentage of affective reasons for imagining music
(8.1%—see Table 1: “Value judgment” 3.1%, “Favorite music” 3.1%,
65
“Sentimental/nostalgia” 1.9%; see also Bailes, 2012), which is com-
parable with the percentage of codes for “affective state” reported by
Williamson et al. (2012).
As hypothesized, a positive relationship was found between
transliminality and the frequency of imagery episodes (Wammes &
Baruss, 2009). This suggests that the propensity for thought to cross
in and out of awareness can lead to a greater consciousness of
imagined phenomena such as musical imagery. In this study, as in
Bailes (2006, 2007), some respondents reported both hearing and
imagining music concurrently. This mentally intensive experience
was less likely to occur than experiencing “no music” when working,
interacting with others, at leisure, watching TV, or simply “being.”
A somewhat puzzling finding from the regression of mood ratings
on musical state was an association between feeling connected and
experiencing musical imagery. This result is hard to interpret, as we
cannot be sure whether respondents felt connected to the music they
imagined, the imagery experience itself, their physical environment,
their current activity, or the people they were with at the time. Further
research is warranted to consider the relationship of imagery to trance,
and to elucidate whether imagining music is experienced as a form of
absorption or dissociation (Herbert, 2011). Parallels have been made
between involuntary musical imagery and mind wandering (Hyman et
al., 2013; Williamson et al., 2014). A dominant theme in the INMI
reports analyzed by Williamson et al. (2012) was that of low attention
states, including mind wandering, in which “the start of the INMI
episode is marked by a period of absent-mindedness or engagement in
monotonous tasks” (p. 272). Such moments of “thoughtlessness” are
a characteristic occurrence in the so-called “Basic Rest Activity Cycle
(BRAC),” which describes a 90-min cycle of fluctuating states of
consciousness (Duchniewsk & Kokoszka, 2003). In experimental
tasks designed to be low in cognitive load, the reappearance of
“intrusive songs” was reported (Hyman et al. 2013). In the current
study, respondents’ ratings of present-mindedness also predicted the
sharpness of their imagery: imagery episodes increased in sharpness
along with interest, but decreased in sharpness along with involve-
ment. However, caution is needed to interpret this finding, as we
cannot be sure what aspect of their experience the respondents were
rating for interest and involvement: their mood, their engagement with
the imagery, or their broader circumstances.
Evidence of mood congruence between hearing and imagining the
same piece of music was presented above. However, such an effect
need not be explained in terms of emotion regulation. Indeed, very
few affective reasons for imagining music were offered by the re-
spondents, in line with Williamson and Jilka (2014), whose interview-
ees described only mildly valenced experiences of involuntary musi-
cal imagery. There is reason to suppose that music that is liked is
better attended to than other music. In turn, music that has been better
attended is more likely to stay in memory and subsequently be
accessed as a mental image. Of the two affective dimensions most
commonly referenced in the literature (Russell, 1980), valence (or
“positivity” in the current study) is logically the most concerned with
such an appetitive engagement, while arousal is typically concerned
with the modulation of attention, which could include endogenous
attention to imagined experience. The results of the current study are
suggestive, paving the way for future research to test whether valence
and arousal play distinctive roles in the imaginative processing of
music. People were expected to imagine music that they like, and
consequently it was hypothesized that a relationship would be found
between music that participants reported choosing to hear and their
 66
imagining of it. Although no evidence for the role of choice in heard
music on the contents of musical imagination was found, this could be
attributable to a lack of statistical power, or the acknowledged blunt-
ness of a sampling method that captures the minority of an individ-
ual’s experiences throughout the week.
Conclusion
The current research has replicated many of the findings from
Bailes (2006, 2007), which suggests that rather than being a rarefied
mental exercise for the musically trained, imagining music is com-
monplace and experienced in similar ways across different popula-
tions. That music students in the earlier study had demonstrated a
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
greater awareness of reasons for imagining music than the current
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
sample lends support to the use of ESM: if nonexperts are less prone
to reflect on their musical imagery than experts, it is all the more
important to capture their experience as it happens, before the mem-
ory subsides. Further research is needed to determine whether imag-
ining music is an effective means of emotional self-regulation, and to
explore its chronobiology. By relating musical imagery to other forms
of spontaneous cognition, we can improve our understanding of why
such a relatively large proportion of our time is spent representing
music in our mind’s ear.
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 MUSIC IN MIND: AN EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDY 67

Appendix
Experience Sampling Form (ESF)

Date: Time Contacted: a.m./p.m. Time Filled Out: a.m./p.m.

As you were contacted, were you hearing any music? YES NO

If YES, please fill out parts A & B of this form with respect to the time you were contacted

As you were contacted, were you imagining any music? YES NO

If YES, please fill out parts A & C of this form with respect to the time you were contacted

NB. If you were both hearing music and imagining music, please fill out parts A, B & C of the form

If you were neither hearing nor imagining music at the time you were contacted, please just fill in Part A with
respect to the time you were contacted.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

PART A
For each pair of moods, tick the category that most closely describes the way you were feeling when you were
contacted.
Very Quite Somewhat Neither Somewhat Quite Very
Alert Drowsy
Happy Sad
Lonely Connected
Energetic Tired
Involved Detached
Tense Relaxed
Interested Bored

Where were you?

What was the MAIN thing you were doing?

Who were you with? (Circle as many as are applicable)

Alone Partner Person/people you live with
Family member(s) Friend(s) Professional(s) (e.g. dentist)
Acquaintance(s) Strangers Person/people you work with
If not alone, how many people were you with?

PART B (Hearing music)

Where was the music coming from?
Radio TV mp3 player PA System (public place)
Record/CD/Laptop Concert Busker Rehearsal/Practice
Whistling/Humming Ring tone Other

Can you name the music you were hearing? YES NO

If YES, please name it
If NO, please circle all style categories that best describe the music you were hearing

Top 40/pop Rock Urban (rap, R&B, hip hop)

Dance/trance/house/techno Jazz/Blues Classical
Country Folk Gospel
Other (please specify)

How much personal choice did you have in hearing the music?
None at all Completely own choice
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Not at all Very much so

How much were you concentrating on the music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Was the music important to the activity/moment? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Do you wish you had been hearing different music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Would you have rather not been hearing music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(Appendix continues)
 68 BAILES

Was there anything in the music that you found particularly important or noticeable?

PART C (Imagining music)

Was the imagined music your own composition? YES NO
Can you name the music you were imagining? YES NO
If YES, please name it
If NO, please circle all style categories that best describe the music you were imagining

Top 40/pop Rock Urban (rap, R&B, hip hop)

Dance/trance/house/techno Jazz/Blues Classical
Country Folk Gospel
Other (please specify)

Had you actually heard this music since the last time you were contacted? YES NO
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

If possible, please explain why you might have been imagining that particular music
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Not at all Very much so

How aware of the imagined music were you? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
How much were you concentrating on the music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Do you wish you had been imagining different music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Would you have rather not been imagining music? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Was there anything in the music that you found particularly important or noticeable?

Please describe how sharp your mental image of the following musical elements was at the time you were
contacted:
Absent Very sharp
Melody 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lyrics (if applicable) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Instruments/Voice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Tempo/Rhythm 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Loudness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Emotion/Expression 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Please give a brief description of how complete the experience was, e.g. Was the music playing in your mind
as a whole piece? Were you hearing a repeated fragment of it? Was there a visual or spatial dimension to your
musical image …?

Are you imagining the same music now? YES NO

If NO, are you imagining different music now? YES NO
If NO, are you actually hearing music now? YES NO

Please write below any additional information or comments about what was happening and/or how you
were feeling when you were imagining the music at the time you were contacted

Received July 4, 2014

Revision received February 9, 2015
Accepted March 22, 2015 䡲