Curiosity and Mind Wandering During Music Listening Are Negatively Correlated

TL;DR

The study shows that when people feel curious about music, they are less likely to have their minds wander.

Contribution

It demonstrates a negative correlation between curiosity and mind wandering during music listening.

Findings

Curiosity and mind wandering are negatively correlated during music listening.

Expertise and music's information dynamics influence mind wandering patterns.

Abstract

Curiosity, a crucial trigger of exploration and learning, has been described as the antithesis of mind wandering, a state of non-engagement with the external environment or a given task. Findings have confirmed that music’s structure influences levels of curiosity in listeners as they listen and, as such, suggests that this context could be useful in examining the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering. Here, participants were exposed to extended melodies twice, during which they carried out two counterbalanced tasks: one requiring them, whenever probed, to indicate whether they had been mind wandering at that moment and the other requiring them to indicate, when probed, how curious they were feeling about the music at that moment. Critically, participants were probed at the exact same moments in the music when completing the two tasks, allowing the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering to be examined. Results confirmed our prediction of a negative relationship between curiosity and mind wandering, while exploratory analysis further suggested an influence of expertise and the music’s information dynamics on patterns of mind wandering. We discuss the implications of our study for understanding music as an exploration-affording sound environment and outline directions for future work.

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