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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

@smmb-lab.bsky.social

140 followers 270 following 20 posts

The SMMBL at the University of Sydney explores how music affects higher order cognition, as well as ways to support musicians' health. https://www.sydney.edu.au/music/our-research/cross-disciplinary-research/sydney-music-mind-and-body-lab.html

www.sydney.edu.au

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 6

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...

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.

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Ceren Ayyildiz @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social · 29d

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...

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...

www.sydney.edu.au

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Ceren Ayyildiz @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social · Aug 25

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...

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

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

University of Sydney (USYD) @sydney.edu.au · Aug 11

“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.

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.

go.sydney.edu.au

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Steffen Herff @steffenherff.bsky.social · Aug 9

@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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 9

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

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.

theconversation.com

Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 9

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

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Kelly Jakubowski @kellyjakubowski.bsky.social · Aug 6

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-...

Inner Music in Fiction and Biography - The Inner Music and Wellbeing Network

Inner Music in Fiction and Biography ‘Inner music’ or ‘musical imagery’ refers to the music that one hears in one’s own head. For example, an ‘earworm’ is a catchy piece of music that is stuck in one’...

musicinmyhead.org

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Ceren Ayyildiz @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social · Aug 6

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.

theconversation.com

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 6

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.

theconversation.com

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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'.

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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:

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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.

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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.

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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.

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Aug 4

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...

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

www.nature.com

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 25

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

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Amanda Krause @studylistening.bsky.social · Jul 25

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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 25

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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 25

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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 25

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

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 25

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.

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Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab @smmb-lab.bsky.social · Jul 24

@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

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Ceren Ayyildiz @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social · Jul 24

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

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Reposted by Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab

Ceren Ayyildiz @cerenayyildiz.bsky.social · Jul 24

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

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