In psychology and neuropsychology, auditory imagery is the subjective experience of hearing in the absence of auditory stimulation. It occurs when one mentally rehearses telephone numbers, or has a song "on the brain": the phenomenon is usually defined to be spontaneous (that is, not under direct concious control); it can be distressing. Auditory imagery is used by neuropsychologists for investigating aspects of human cognition. Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. ... Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. ... Hearing is the following: Hearing is the sense by which sound is perceived. ... This article is about compression waves. ...

Writing in Nature, David J. M. Kraemer and coworkers use magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether the auditory cortex is recruited during auditory imagery of popular music. Nature is one of the oldest and most reputable general-purpose scientific journals, first published on November 4, 1869. ... Magnetic Resonance Image Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method of creating images of the inside of opaque organs in living organisms as well as detecting the amount of bound water in geological structures. ...

Kraemer played excerpts of songs with lyrics (including Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones), and to instrumentals that contained no lyrics (including the theme from The Pink Panther). (I Cant Get No) Satisfaction is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for their band, the Rolling Stones. ... This article is about the rock band. ... An instrumental is, in contrast to a song, a musical composition or piece without lyrics or any other sort of vocal music; all of the music is produced by musical instruments. ... The Pink Panther refers to: A series of films, most of which feature Peter Sellers as the bumbling French policeman Jacques Clouseau The diamond depicted in the first film (although fans over the years have perceived Inspector Clouseau to be the Pink Panther, as evidenced by the titles of the...

Each subject rated each piece of music as either familiar or unknown. The music was then played to the subjects, but with short (2-5 seconds portions of the track replaced with silent gaps of equal length. The neural activity in the subjects was then monitored during these gaps. This article is about the unit of time. ...

Kraemer then compared neural activity in the Brodmann area of the brain during gaps in familiar music with activity during gaps in unfamiliar music (auditory imagery being assumed to occur during gaps in the familiar music but not in the unfamiliar music). Silent gaps embedded in familiar songs induced greater activation in auditory association areas than did silent gaps embedded in unknown songs, indicating that auditory imagery has elements in common with visual imagery. A Brodmann area is a region in the brain cortex defined by its cytoarchitectonic characteristics. ...

This research thus suggests a neural basis for the familiar experience of hearing a familiar melody in one's head. Kraemer emphasises the obligatory nature of the phenomenon: muting short gaps of familiar music was sufficient to trigger auditory imagery.

Reference

• Nature 434, 158 (10 March 2005); doi:10.1038/434158a