Engagement and Visual Imagery in Music Listening: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study empirically investigated music listeners’ responses to solo piano works with respect to their levels of musical engagement (heightened attention and interest toward the music; Olsen, Dean, & Stevens, 2014) and their experience of music-induced visual imagery. Although engagement and visual imagery have been increasingly explored over the past 2 decades, little work has investigated the relationship between the two. Potential links exist, as visual imagery has been described as one of the key mechanisms underlying listeners’ emotional responses to music. A total of 34 participants listened to 4 complete piano works and used a slider to continuously provide self-report measures of their engagement with the music and the occurrence of visual imagery while listening. Time series analyses revealed that engagement with the music was significantly associated with visual imagery experience. Granger causality tests were carried out to investigate the details of the nature of this relationship. Overall, engagement mostly predicted visual imagery, but differences by piece and musical experience are apparent. Individual differences are reported with respect to engagement and visual imagery responses.