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The pilot study was conducted in 1999 as an independent study topic. The purpose was to prove the existence of audiation and explore the reasons for audiation in musicians and non-musicians through the use of surveys, interviews and diaries. Twelve females and thirteen males between the ages of 18 and 36 (median age of 20, standard deviation 3.6, range 18) completed surveys dealing with the topic of their experience with audiation. The majority of the subjects were university students, with the majority having some sort of musical background (good general knowledge of music was accepted as background). Four of these subjects (two male, two female) were invited to elaborate on more specific questions, and two of the initial sample (both sexes) kept a journal for a day of their audiation.

It was a qualitative and quantitative study, with most of the results of the surveys analysed statistically. The study found that there were certain internal and external factors which activate audiation within an individual. The external factors included audio stimuli and situations, while the internal factors included mood, boredom, and prior association. It was discovered that a person humming, singing or whistling for no apparent reason was usually an external indication of audiation taking place. It was indicated that audiation generally took the form of pre-existing music, with only a small percentage reporting the ability to compose original music in their minds. People experience different quantities of audiation, ranging from audiation only a couple of times a week, to continuous audiation. It was also noted that people would often experience repetitive audiation, sometimes to the point of psychological discomfort. Audiation is not restricted to music that the person likes; it is often music that the person professes to dislike. Finally, temporal deviations are common when a person is audiating, the music audiated does not always progress in the same fashion as a recording of the music would; it often skips around and repeats sections.

There are many parallels and variations between individual accounts of audiation. The similarities are that there are triggers, repetition, external indications (singing, whistling), and temporal deviations. Intensity of audiation, types of music audiated, frequency of occurrence, and control of audiation are some of the differences between individuals. From the results of the pilot study some parameters for recognising an occurrence of audiation within a film were established. (See Chapter 2, section 2.5 Parameters for Audiation)

Audiation is the ability that humans have to store sounds, such as music and musical information in their memory and to reproduce that memory either internally and thus silently or externally (singing, whistling, and humming). This inventory of sounds comprises the sonic structure of an individual, which determines how the individual perceives and responds (physically and emotionally) to sound (and music). Given this capacity for people to audiate, and given that musical meaning is bound up with musical and life experience, it is understandable that film music can contain examples of a character's audiation.