VOLUME LXXII | DEC 2022

Unraveling the Influence of Music on Imagination

A recent Forum piece suggests that our imagination is strongly influenced by the sounds and stories we experience through music. The authors argue that the imagery we create in our minds is heavily shaped by immediate sensory cues and cultural influences, rather than being purely a product of individual creativity. Just like how the flavors in a dish can evoke vivid memories of childhood or transport us to a different time and place, music has the power to shape our mental imagery and transport us to different emotional landscapes. Recent evidence supports the idea that the narratives associated with music are consistent within but not between cultures, highlighting the impact of shared cultural experiences on our imaginative processes. To better understand and appreciate the intricate relationship between music and imagination, it is worth diving into the research presented in this article.

Aiyana Tremblay

Aiyana is an Indigenous educator from Alberta, with a background in environmental science and community wellness programs. She volunteers as an author to explore how traditional knowledge intersects with modern neuroscience to unlock human resilience and potential.

In their Forum piece ‘Using music to probe how perception shapes imagination’, Margulis and McAuley [1] propose that imagination is more heavily shaped by immediate environmental cues and shared cultural experiences than previously thought. They review recent evidence demonstrating that narratives associated with music show high consistency within but not between cultures, and argue that individuals’ imaginings (i.e., thoughts or mental imagery in any sense modality) are shaped by immediate sensory input such as structural features of a specific piece of music.
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