Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

How tiny tweaks in music shape what we imagine New research from the Sydney Music, Mind and Body Lab at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney has found that even the smallest of human touches in music can shape and enhance...

Following the publication of our paper "Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery", the University of Sydney has just shared a media release!

How tiny tweaks in music shape what we imagine
www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion...

Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery

The first study from my PhD project is now available! 🎉

"Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery"

Supervised by wonderful @steffenherff.bsky.social @andytonality.bsky.social and @muireannirish.bsky.social.

Read here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Music is good company: new study shows music induces social imagination Music keeps you company: a new study led by Dr Steffen A. Herff, cognitive neuroscientist at Sydney, Music, Mind and Body Lab at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has shown for the first time empirically that music can indeed keep you company by facilitating imagined social interactions.

“Whether we’re celebrating or grieving, music is something we can turn to."

A new study led by @steffenherff.bsky.social from @sydney.edu.au's Sydney Conservatorium of Music has shown for the first time empirically that music can keep you company by facilitating imagined social interactions.

@cerenayyildiz.bsky.social from the @smmb-lab.bsky.social just did a wonderful interview on live TV discussing our recent research looking at 'Can Music be good company'.
#musicscience #mentalimagery @sydney.edu.au

Can music be good company? Research shows it makes our imagination more social When people listen to music, they’re more likely to imagine social interactions.

Link to conversation article : theconversation.com/can-music-be...
Link to research article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wonderful to see our research being featured on the ABC's Weekend Breakfast. In a wonderful chat between @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social from the Sydney, Music, Mind, and Body Lab, and Fauziah Ibrahim & Tom Oriti from the ABC, they discussed how music can be good company. @sydney.edu.au

Can you think of examples of books, films, TV shows, etc. featuring earworms or other types of imagined music? Please share them here! musicinmyhead.org/inner-music-...

Can music be good company? Research shows it makes our imagination more social When people listen to music, they’re more likely to imagine social interactions.

My supervisor, Dr @steffenherff.bsky.social, and I wrote this piece for The Conversation on music and imagination:
“Can music be good company?”
…based on our lab’s recent work

@smmb-lab.bsky.social

theconversation.com/can-music-be...

Can music be good company? Research shows it makes our imagination more social When people listen to music, they’re more likely to imagine social interactions.

Can music be good company?

We contributed a small piece to the @theconversation.com drawing from recent work in the field of music and mental imagery. #musicscience #mentalimagery

theconversation.com/can-music-be...

All in all, it seems music can indeed be good company :-). #musicscience

Then, we showed these images to a new group of participants and asked them to guess which ones came from participants' imagination during music and silence. The new sample could the task, but only when also listening to the music, hinting at a 'theory of mind of music-evoked mental imagery'.

We then used Stable Diffusion to visualise the 4200 mental imagery reports we collected, and trained a topic model to generate normative representations of the imagined content. Even in these abstracted representation, the difference is quite noticeable:

The effect was quite strong, and was there regardless of whether listeners spoke the language of the lyrics, and it even showed when the music was purely instrumental.

We used Latent Dirichlet Allocation to investigate the themes imagined. We observed much increased loads of social and adventure themes during music listening. Whereas participants during the silence condition stuck much closer to the task instructions and other contextual introductions.

We asked 600 participants to listen to music and imagine journeys towards landmarks. Music compared to silence increases imagined vividness, emotional sentiment, as well as imagined distance and time travelled.

Solitary silence and social sounds: music can influence mental imagery, inducing thoughts of social interactions - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Solitary silence and social sounds: music can influence mental imagery, inducing thoughts of social interactions

Delighted to share our new work 'Solitary silence and social sounds: music can influence mental imagery, inducing thoughts of social interactions'. We show that music is indeed good company! #musicscience #mentalimagery www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We had a great time in São Paulo! A massive thanks to all attendees, both in person and online, as well as the organisers of the #icmpc18 who made this such a rich experience. #musicscience

Massimo Grassi, Do musicians have better short-term memory than nonmusicians?

Multilab study shows musos are different from non-musos.
+ shows small effects can be reliably detected.

+ multilab benefits> diverse, globally rep. samples w/ research work distributed

#ICMPC2025 #MusicScience #ICMPC18

Fernando Castellar from the SMMBL shows how the use of music and mental imagery differs between athletes and coaches and as a function of competitive level. #icmpc18 #musicscience

In addition to her talk on the effect of rhythmic layering on mental imagery, @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social from the SMMBL also contributed a poster showing compelling interactions between musical micro variations and individual absorption tendencies on mental imagery #icmpc18 #musicscience

Fernando Castellar from the SMMBL presents new data on how music & mental imagery affect performance in a sporting task. He shows that even after a single, short mental imagery session, skill acquisition is already dramatically increased! #icmpc18 #musicscience

At #icmpc18 @adefathiawati.bsky.social from the SMMBL shares new data about the prevalence of Music Performance Anxiety, as well as deployed mitigation strategies amongst tertiary music student in Australia.

@ugurmkaya.bsky.social from the SMMBL shares at the #icmpc18 how expert vocalists can intentionally shape the mental imagery of listeners. In a mixed method design he collected 6 hours(!) of singing and interview recordings for each participating vocalists. #musicscience

Ade (@adefathiawati.bsky.social) from our lab highlighted updated trends in Music Performance Anxiety among tertiary music students across Australia, as well as the mitigation strategies students use 📊
#ICMPC18
@smmb-lab.bsky.social

Ugur @ugurmkaya.bsky.social from our lab just gave a great talk at #ICMPC18 on how vocalists draw on their own intuitions to influence the vividness and emotional quality of listeners’ mental imagery. 🎤
@smmb-lab.bsky.social

#icmpc18 more excellent research coming from @smmb-lab.bsky.social. Ade Fathiawati shares her findings on psychological and pharmacological strategies to mitigate performance anxiety among students.

My lab colleague Fernando Castellar presented his poster on ‘The prevalence of music, mental imagery, and their combined use as a mental training technique by athletes and coaches’ at #ICMPC18 today! 🏋️🏌️‍♂️⛹️‍♀️🎶🎧💭 it’s inspiring to see how far his research has come!
@smmb-lab.bsky.social

My wonderful PhD supervisor, @steffenherff.bsky.social, gave a fantastic talk at #ICMPC18 on “Expertise predicts more efficient muscle spike shapes in drummers” today! 🥁 Incredible to see how nuanced motor control evolves with skill 💪
#ICMPC18 @smmb-lab.bsky.social

Dr. Steffen Herff from @smmb-lab.bsky.social shares very rich findings at #icmpc18 about expertise-related muscle activation in drummers. This work has important implications for biofeedback interventions to help musicians develop their skills and avoid playing-related injury. #musicscience

Miriam Olsen, @smmb-lab.bsky.social,The efficacy of using biofeedback... : A systematic review and meta-analysis

>biofeedback has potential to regulate muscle activity, improve musical performance & reduce musicians' health symptoms
>could supplement normal practice

#ICMPC2025 #MusicScience