** This list is managed by Dr Evangelos Himonides (UCL), on behalf of the Society for Education and Music Psychology Research (sempre), and aims to serve as a discussion forum for researchers working at the shared boundaries of science and music. This list was previously managed by the Institute of Musical Research. **

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KOSMOS Workshop
“Mind Wandering and Visual Mental Imagery in Music”
Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Medienwissenschaft
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
May 16-19, 2018

Confirmed speakers

Prof. Rolf Inge Godøy (University of Oslo)
Prof. Jörg Fachner (Anglia Ruskin University)
Dr Ruth Herbert (University of Kent)
Dr Rebecca Schaefer (University of Leiden)
Dr Anthony Gritten (Royal Academy of Music)
Dr Daniel Margulies (MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig)
Dr Sebastian Stober (University of Potsdam)

The KOSMOS Workshop will be led by Dr Mats Küssner (HU Berlin), Dr Liila Taruffi (FU Berlin), Dr Georgina Floridou (University of Sheffield), and Prof. Tuomas Eerola (Durham University).

Call for Posters

The ability to create a life in the mind is one of the most fascinating human capacities, and of interest to scholars in the cognitive sciences and humanities alike. Mind wandering is a very frequent mental activity that is defined as a shift of our attention away from the external perceptual environment towards internally-oriented, self-generated thoughts. These thoughts naturally flow over time and vary in their content dimensions (e.g., temporal focus, valence, intentionality) and form (images, music, speech, words). Mental images can create vivid experiences as our minds start to wander, and play a major role in creative processes as well as the perception of art. While researchers have investigated the significance and nature of visual mental imagery in connection with literature or visual arts, relatively little is known about the mechanisms and functions underlying mind wandering and visual mental imagery in music, even though recent evidence suggests that this is a common phenomenon. The central research question of this KOSMOS Workshop is thus what are the cognitive, affective, aesthetic, neural and phenomenological dimensions of the link between mind wandering, visual mental imagery and music.

Proposals for posters will be welcomed from researchers in any discipline from the sciences, social sciences or humanities that may be able to advance a comprehensive understanding of mind wandering and visual mental imagery in music.
The following non-exhaustive list illustrates some of the issues to be discussed at the workshop:

- What is the nature of the link between music listening and visual mental imagery?
- What are the functional uses of mind wandering and visual mental imagery in music (e.g., evocation of emotion, enhancing creativity/creative problem solving)?
- How do structural properties of the music relate to contents of mind wandering during music listening?
- To what extent does music-elicited mental visual imagery overlap with perceptual processes in our brain (e.g., in the primary visual cortex)?
- How do mind wandering and visual mental imagery affect emotional responses to music (and vice versa)? What is the nature of these mechanisms?
- To what extent do inter-individual differences in personality traits play a role for mind wandering and visual mental imagery during music listening?
- How does basic research on mind wandering and visual mental imagery in music inform applications of music in health and wellbeing?

Submissions should be made electronically in Word or PDF format to [log in to unmask] by 28 Feb 2018. Please provide your name, postal and email addresses, and any institutional affiliation on the first page. Start your abstract on the second page and write no more than 250 words.

We aim to notify all applicants about the outcome of the reviewing process by the end of March 2018.

Travel bursaries for early-career researchers

The format of the KOSMOS Workshop particularly welcomes the participation of early-career researchers (MA/PhD students and Post-Docs). We are able to provide a limited number of travel bursaries to help cover some of the costs of attending the KOSMOS Workshop. To be eligible for a travel bursary, you must be a full- or part-time student or an unwaged delegate who has been accepted to participate in the KOSMOS Workshop. To apply, please provide the following information on a separate sheet of paper: name, affiliation, contact address, email, status, country of residence and amount of funding sought. Please explain why you are unable to obtain funding from other sources and how attendance of this KOSMOS Workshop benefits your future research. Please submit your application for a travel bursary together with your proposal for a poster by 28 Feb 2018.

This KOSMOS Workshop is generously supported by
- Future Concept resources of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin through the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government and its Federal States.
- The Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE)
- Guger technologies (g.tec)