Ariza, Juan Felipe Pérez and Omigie, Diana. 2025. Curiosity and Mind Wandering During Music Listening Are Negatively Correlated. Behavioral Sciences, 15(3), 393. ISSN 2076-328X [Article]

Preview

Text behavsci-15-00393 (2).pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (857kB) | Preview

Abstract or Description

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.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030393
Data Access Statement:	The original data presented in the study are openly available in the following Open Science Framework repository: https://osf.io/7f9jm/?view_only=0f799edaf94d400 99f0127f020eab3c2 (accessed on 10 February 2025).
Keywords:	music; mind wandering; curiosity; musical expertise; information theory; learning
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 12 March 2025 Accepted 20 March 2025 Published
Item ID:	39314
Date Deposited:	01 Aug 2025 11:30
Last Modified:	01 Aug 2025 11:30
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39314

View statistics for this item...

Edit Record (login required)