NACS Seminar: Andrea Halpern (Bucknell)

Dr. Andrea Halpern (Department of Psychology, Bucknell University)

Imagine That! Individual Differences in Auditory Imagery for Music

Abstract: Mental imagery abilities vary among individuals, as shown both by objective measures and by self-report. Few imagery studies consider auditory imagery, however.  In this talk, I will argue that a. there are individual differences in auditory imagery for music b. these can be captured via self-report and c. this self-report predicts some interesting behavioral and neural aspects of imagining music. The Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale is a short self-report measure encompassing both Vividness and Control of auditory imagery.  High scores on Vividness predict fewer source memory errors in distinguishing heard from imagined tunes on a recognition test, and better performance on pitch imitation tasks. Furthermore, higher scores are related to neural activity and gray matter volume in several brain areas that are known to be involved in auditory imagery.  Even though self-report measures encompass both cognitive and metacognitive aspects, they are useful tools in accounting for individual differences in high-level cognitive skills.

The event is open to the public.