A fresh wave of psychology research suggests that listening to music does more than lift mood or fill silence. In a pair of experiments with more than 600 participants, scientists found that music listening reliably shifts the content of people’s intentional mental imagery toward social themes. The effect is strong across languages and persists even when the music is unfamiliar or devoid of lyrics. This discovery could have meaningful implications for therapy, education, and everyday well-being—particularly in Thailand, where family and community bonds are central to daily life and mental health discussions are increasingly prioritized in public policy and healthcare.
The study, published in a leading scientific journal, builds on a broad tradition of asking how music shapes our inner experiences. For years, researchers have shown that music can modulate emotion, memory, and spontaneous mind-wandering. What makes these new findings striking is their focus on the actual content of directed mental imagery. Directed imagery—where a person is guided to imagine a specific scenario with clearly defined elements—plays a crucial role in several therapeutic techniques and clinical interventions. If music can steer what people picture in their minds, it could become a simple, powerful tool to improve outcomes in therapies that rely on vivid, controlled imagery, such as imagery-based cognitive therapies or exposure work.
The lead author, a scholar affiliated with a prominent music-cognition lab, explains that the notion of music as “company” during isolation has long been voiced in surveys and conversations. People often say music keeps them connected when they feel alone. Yet until now, there was little empirical evidence linking music to concrete shifts in social content within imagined scenes. The new work addresses that gap with rigorous experiments and diverse participant groups, aiming to translate a subjective perception into measurable change in cognitive processing.
In the first experiment, participants watched a short video excerpt showing a solitary traveler beginning a journey toward a distant mountain. After watching, they closed their eyes and spent 90 seconds imagining how the journey continued. During this imagination phase, participants were exposed to one of several conditions: complete silence, or listening to folk songs presented in Spanish, Italian, or Swedish. Crucially, the researchers varied whether the songs were sung or instrumental and whether listeners understood the language of the lyrics. The study enrolled 600 adults, evenly distributed among native and non-native speakers of each language, to test whether comprehension or vocal presence mattered for any observed effects.
After the imagination period, participants described their imagined scenes and rated vividness, emotional tone, and perceived journey distance and duration. The researchers then applied a sophisticated topic-modeling approach to identify recurring themes across the narratives. Across nearly all musical conditions, music made the imagined scenes more vivid and emotionally positive than silence. Participants also perceived a longer, more expansive journey when music was playing. Yet the most distinctive and robust effect was the surge in social content within the imagined scenes. A specific topic centered on social interaction—mentioning people, friends, villages, and togetherness—appeared far more often when music accompanied the imagination. The social theme’s presence rose across 30 of 36 music-language conditions, suggesting a broad, cross-language influence of musical context on social imagination.
The lead author notes that the probability of imagining social interactions with music was more than three times higher than with silence, a magnitude that surprised many in the field. Importantly, this social tilt persisted whether the lyrics were understood or even present at all. Even instrumental music could nudge imagery toward social content. There was one notable exception: an Italian folk tune about a communal grape harvest amplified the effect when its lyrics were understood, highlighting how lyrical content can augment music’s social pull under certain contexts. In short, music’s social influence does not rely on comprehended language or even on human voices; it appears to be a robust perceptual and cognitive effect rooted in the auditory experience itself.
To probe whether the social orientation in imagery translates into shared understanding, the researchers designed a second experiment using image generation technology. A stable diffusion model produced visual representations from participants’ written descriptions of their imagined scenes. Then, new participants were shown pairs of images: one imagined during the music condition and one imagined during silence. They were asked to identify which image matched the music-induced imagination. When these “new listeners” also listened to the same music, they more accurately distinguished the music-derived images from the silence-derived ones. This finding points to an implicit theory of mind about music-evoked imagery: listeners can infer what someone else might imagine when the same music is in the background. The result underscores how music can serve as a shared cognitive context, not just a personal mood cue.
In a separate validation step, researchers manually annotated thousands of responses to quantify the social content and the emotional tone of imagined scenes. They found that descriptions following music trials tended to be warmer, brighter, and more socially oriented, while those following silence skewed darker and more solitary. The contrast was striking: around 39% of music-condition descriptions included social interaction, compared with about 12% in the silent condition. Taken together, these analyses reinforce the central claim: music can shape not only how vividly we imagine but also what we imagine, steering our inner narratives toward social worlds even in solitary tasks.
The authors acknowledge several important caveats. First, the musical stimuli were drawn from Western folk traditions, a limitation that calls for replication across a wider array of genres, including pop, jazz, electronic, and non-Western musical traditions. Such expansion would help determine whether the social-imagery effect generalizes globally or remains more pronounced within particular musical cultures. Second, while lyrics did not overall drive the effect, there are conditions under which understanding the content of a song could amplify social imagery. More research is needed to parse which musical features—tempo, melody, rhythm, timbre, or cultural associations—are most predictive of this phenomenon. Finally, the studies tested directed imagery under controlled experimental conditions; real-world imagery—such as scenes imagined during daily routines, storytelling, or therapy—may interact with additional cognitive and emotional factors.
The implications for Thailand and other Southeast Asian contexts are intriguing. Loneliness and social isolation have become increasingly visible in public health discussions, especially among aging populations and urban dwellers who live apart from extended families. In many Thai communities, family members, monks, and neighbors form a social web that supports emotional well-being and resilience. Music has long played a central role in Thai culture—from temple songs and folk tunes to modern pop that fills community spaces during festivals. If listening to music can reliably invite social content into people’s inner narratives, music-based interventions could augment existing therapies and preventive programs designed to alleviate loneliness, improve mood, and strengthen social connectedness.
Practically, Thai healthcare providers could explore incorporating music into imagery-based therapeutic modalities. For instance, clinicians using imagery rescripting or exposure therapies might pair sessions with carefully selected music that aligns with the patient’s cultural background and personal preferences. In school settings, teachers could use music as a tool to help students build social imagination alongside cognitive tasks, potentially supporting collaborative learning, empathy development, and social-emotional learning. For older adults living alone or in care facilities, guided imagery exercises with soothing, familiar music could help create more socially resonant mental experiences, potentially reducing perceptions of isolation and fostering a sense of belonging.
From a cultural standpoint, the study resonates with Thai values around harmony, community, and the moral significance of social bonds. Buddhist teachings emphasize interdependence and compassion, and many Thai families place a premium on caring for one another. A growing body of mental health research in Thailand underscores the protective value of social support and rituals that reinforce connectedness. Music, often a social activity at temples, community centers, and family gatherings, may be uniquely positioned to support mental well-being by shaping how people imagine and experience social warmth. The cross-cultural element of the research also invites Thai scholars to contribute to a broader dialogue about how musical meaning travels across cultures and how local musical traditions might harness this effect in therapeutically meaningful ways.
Looking ahead, the researchers signal a broader program of work exploring music-evoked mental imagery at finer scales. They aim to examine highly specific musical features and their relationship to imagery, and to investigate how listeners use music to self-regulate emotions and cognitive states across age groups. For Thailand, these directions could translate into targeted programs that combine music, mental imagery, and cultural relevance to address diverse needs—from anxiety and loneliness to school engagement and social cohesion. Collaborative efforts with Thai universities, music therapists, and community organizations could test culturally adapted music-imagery protocols in clinical and educational settings, with careful attention to ethical considerations, accessibility, and safeguards for vulnerable populations.
The study also invites a nuanced discussion about the broader role of arts in health. If music can bias imagination toward social content, it may offer a gentle, non-stigmatizing approach to mental health support that complements pharmacological and traditional psychotherapies. It opens questions about how best to tailor musical experiences for different communities—how to balance familiarity and novelty, how to respect personal musical histories, and how to ensure inclusivity across generations and linguistic backgrounds. For Thai families, teachers, and healthcare professionals, the core takeaway is clear: music is not merely a backdrop to life; it can become part of a therapeutic toolkit that nurtures social imagination, resilience, and hope.
In practical terms, quick takeaways for readers include: consider the social potential of music in everyday life by foregrounding songs that evoke positive social memories during family time or group activities; in therapeutic contexts, explore music-informed imagery exercises that emphasize social connections—whether it’s imagining reunions, community gatherings, or expressions of shared care; and seek collaborations with local artists and clinicians to pilot culturally resonant music-based imagery activities, particularly for groups prone to loneliness or social withdrawal. While more research is needed to map out genre-specific effects and to confirm generalizability across cultures, the current findings offer a compelling reminder of music’s power to shape not just how we feel, but how we imagine—and perhaps, in that imagination, how we connect with others.
For Thai policymakers and health professionals, the study’s message is timely: it reinforces the value of integrating the arts into mental health and educational strategies as a culturally consonant path to strengthening social fabric. If music can nudge people toward socially rich imagery, then music-based engagement could become a low-cost, scalable approach to promoting social inclusion, improving mental well-being, and supporting compassionate communities that reflect Thai values of family, community, and respect for shared wisdom. The next steps will require careful, locally grounded research—collaborations that bring together psychologists, music therapists, educators, and community leaders—to translate these exciting laboratory findings into real-world benefits for Thai families across Bangkok and the provinces.