Music & Mind-Wandering: Examining the Impact of Perceived Music Structure on the Occurrence of Mind-Wandering

Introduction: Mind-wandering episodes often occur during everyday activities, such as listening to music. While a few previous studies have highlighted the impact of music-evoked emotions on thought contents (Taruffi et al., 2017), the mechanisms through which mind-wandering originates from music remain poorly understood. This study examines whether there is a temporal alignment between the perceived structural dynamics of the music and mind-wandering reports during music listening.

Methods: Self-caught instances of mind-wandering will be measured while 80 participants listen to one of two 5-minute instrumental music pieces (either in a familiar or unfamiliar genre). Additionally, to identify which structural elements may induce mind-wandering, qualitative data on listeners’ specific thought triggers and their associated mind-wandering episodes will be collected. A separate group of 50 participants (both non-musicians and musicians) will segment the music pieces to indicate perceived event changes in the music structure.

Expected Results: While data collection is currently ongoing and will be completed in early spring, it is expected that perceived event changes in the music structure will negatively predict the occurrence of mind-wandering, with a stronger effect for unfamiliar (versus familiar) music.

Conclusion/Significance: This study has important implications for understanding the complex relationship between environmental changes and the modulation of attention in a naturalistic context, such as music listening.