Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
3-2017
Abstract
We empirically investigated the effect of mental imagery on young children’s music compositional creativity. Children aged 5 to 8 years participated in two music composition sessions. In the control session, participants based their composition on a motif that they had created using a sequence of letter names. In the mental imagery session, participants were given a picture of an animal and instructed to imagine the animal’s sounds and movements, before incorporating what they had imagined into their composition. Six expert judges independently rated all music compositions on creativity based on subjective criteria (consensual assessment). Reliability analyses indicated that the expert judges demonstrated a high level of agreement in their ratings. The mental imagery compositions received significantly higher creativity ratings by the expert judges than did the control compositions. These results provide evidence for the effectiveness of mental imagery in enhancing young children’s music compositional creativity.
Keywords
Mental imagery, Creativity, Music Composition, Consensual Assessment Technique
Discipline
Child Psychology | Educational Psychology | Music | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
PLoS ONE
Volume
12
Issue
3
First Page
1
Last Page
16
ISSN
1932-6203
Identifier
10.1371/journal.pone.0174009
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
WONG, Sarah Shi Hui, & LIM, Stephen Wee Hun.(2017). Mental imagery boosts music compositional creativity. PLoS ONE, 12(3), 1-16.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4270
Copyright Owner and License
Authors-CC-BY
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174009
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Music Commons, Social Psychology Commons