The Mind’s Ear and Inner Voice 2025 Conference: Aims, Themes and Lessons Learned

The Mind’s Ear and Inner Voice 2025 conference was held at the University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau in April 2025. Six broad themes that emerged from three days of lively inter-disciplinary interchange are reviewed below by the conference organizers. Across these six themes, The Mind’s Ear and Inner Voice 2025 delivered two important lessons. The first concerned the need for psychological science to address, embrace and explain human diversity, particularly with respect to the striking individual differences that have been described in the ability to imagine sounds, voices and music. Inter-disciplinary conversations between scientists, literary scholars, poets, writers and musicians highlighted a further lesson. A rich trove of insight is to be gained from considering how the unheard and hidden domain of auditory imagination can be transformed into explicit, shared expressions communicated through creative art, scientific investigation and theory development. A series of Special Topic papers linked with this editorial introduction explore these themes and lessons and summarize presentations delivered at The Mind’s Ear and Inner Voice 2025. The first of these appear below in the current issue of the journal; others are to be published in subsequent issues.