ABSTRACT
Are there different constraints on musical imagery in different cultures? Are there culture specific schemata which govern the formation of images of musical sound in our minds? It would be tempting to guess that this is the case when we observe how most other expressions of music seem to be influenced by culture. However, as with so many other aspects of musical imagery, our information about the nature of such images is mostly indirect, i.e. we can access images of musical sound only through various accounts, experiments and observations. One such observational approach to musical imagery is through what can be deduced from research on the perception and cognition of musical sound by means of non-invasive neurometrical methods. These methods have led to the establishment of an interdisciplinary field of study which has developed rapidly during the past fifteen years, a field which is now generally known as cognitive neuromusicology.
