Characterising the neuro-oscillatory signatures of spontaneous and deliberate music-evoked visual imagery and examining their role in stress recovery.

Music listening's role in mood regulation is widely documented, and visual imagery has been suggested as a key mechanism by which music influences listeners' affective states. However, evidence that music-evoked visual imagery can reduce negative affect is limited, and it remains unclear whether spontaneous and deliberate forms differ with regard to the effects they have. The current study thus combined probe-caught experience sampling methodology with electroencephalography and skin conductance measurements to explore the extent to which music-evoked visual imagery may play a role in stress reduction. In each of three blocks, thirty participants underwent a multicomponent stress induction task before experiencing one of three extended auditory tracks: a relaxing music track, a non-relaxing music track, or a radio show podcast (active control listening track). State anxiety was measured before stress induction, after stress induction, and after the presentation of the track. Importantly, during each track, instances and the rate of spontaneous, deliberate and no visual imagery were captured thanks to the probe-caught experience sampling method. Our findings show that music-evoked visual imagery is associated with enhanced stress reduction (as captured by self-report and physiological measures) beyond the role of the music's acoustic features. We also replicate and extend previous findings that visual imagery is associated with posterior alpha and fronto-central gamma suppression, and associate, for the first time, deliberate/spontaneous imagery with frontal theta suppression/enhancement. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that visual imagery has benefits for reducing anxiety and stress-related states and expand understanding of how neural correlates of music-evoked visual imagery may differ as a function of intentionality.