Comments on: Earworms: How and Why Music Gets Stuck in Your Head

By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 09:38:58 +0000

Doug Landauer That’s really interesting! I know what you mean – it’s painful to get an earworm when you don’t know the lyrics. This happened to me recently, where I can only remember one fragmented line but I don’t know the song. I know it’s about something I read or watched recently but I was getting frazzled over trying to figure out what it was!

It seems from the comments here that there’s another area to explore, which is the diverse ways people manage their earworms and why this works for them. I see this is connected to: 1) how and why you caught the earworm in the first place; 2) how your memory works. Maybe you have a stronger problem-solving memory and the earworms that stick around are like mental puzzles you can’t quite solve.

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By: Doug Landauer

Doug Landauer — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 22:59:01 +0000

When I get an earworm, if it’s a song I know and like I can usually just sing (sometimes silently) all the words to it, and then move on to a different song. Usually the second song doesn’t stick as an earworm.

Possibly even worse than earworms of songs I hate is when I get stuck with a fragment of a song I’ve overheard a number of times, but I can’t quite remember (or never knew) what song it is. Fragment being, say, half of the chorus, … or just the “Hey! Ho!” part 🙂 … So instead of just dismissing it by overwriting with another song, I end up trying to figure out what the heck it is.

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By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 13:01:13 +0000

Thanks for sharing the topic of your thesis Tecno Tecnonaut. Very interesting that small sounds will trigger your memories!

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By: Tecno Tecnonaut

Tecno Tecnonaut — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 17:11:16 +0000

Zuleyka Zevallos You may well be right about my memory being more attuned to word associations. I do tend to only need to have a small cue to recall knowledge – those cues could be a related word or term or even noises. I often read on the bus and if I’m on a bus without a book and I hear a noise that the bus might make then I recall what I was reading when I last heard that noise – quite often the particular bit of the book I was reading. This did come in handy when I did my Psychology degree as I could recall a lot of information just by reading a term or a researchers name. I agree that there must be a relationship between how memory functions and the processes behind earworms, somehow the earworm is recalled from our musical knowledge base. The interesting part is that they cam seemingly just happen without any known stimulus. The empathy aspect in how earworms work is interesting too, empathic relationships between people are fascinating and a powerful driver in social functioning. The brain and its functioning is indeed a fascinating area of research, I always enjoyed the lectures we had on working and long term memory. My dissertation investigated part of the process involved in how we categorise groups of knowledge. Ah, I miss those days at university..

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By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 14:16:40 +0000

Tecno Tecnonaut There seems to be a connection between earworms and the way our memories works. Even though you love techno music and you DJ, your memory may be more attuned to word associations. I’m clear that words help my memory – writing things down, especially by hand, will help me remember that information better. I remember where on the page I write something (left or right hand side, top, middle or bottom). This is about how I learned to read; and the fact that I’ve read and written a lot from a young age. So it’s no surprise that my earworms follow this logic. Perhaps for you words may trigger your long term memory also? Perhaps it’s not the words per se, but the mental image that the words create in your memory – whether it’s about emotion, or remembering places or people, or so on. Memories are fascinating. There is still so much more to learn about how the brain and how our memories work! It’s exciting.

That’s funny your girlfriend likens earworm contagions to yawns! I catch earworms from people I’m close to, or again if it’s something I’ve read. Like if someone writes about, or tells me about, why they love a song, it’s likely to get stuck in my head a day or so later. So I get empathetic earworms! This follows my research interests too – I’m a qualitative researcher by training. Empathy is central to creating rapport with interview participants, and it helps us become familiar with the data, as well as being able to remember large chunks of text during the analysis and write up.

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By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 14:03:47 +0000

Wow, your work as a choral director seems very interesting Deb Thurston! This is a great question. You’re right IMI and pitch memory are not the same, but many researchers see that they’re connected, including the study I wrote about. This particular study didn’t use fMRI because they were specifically interested in subjective experiences of earworms. But you’re in luck! Other studies have looked at this very thing you’re interested in. Koelsch and colleagues didn’t look at earworms per se, but they did use brain imaging to see how pitch and verbal words worked in the memory. It turns out that tonal and verbal musical information are not stored or recalled in different parts of the brain. Instead, the neural networks for pitch and lyrics overlap. The study is behind a paywall: http://goo.gl/g4qdMp

Daniel Levitin sheds light on this connection between pitch and lyrics. One of his studies looked at memory function of musical pitch. He finds that a subgroup of people can recreate memories of pitch perfectly every time (12% of the sample of 46 undergrad psych students). A further 40% of people can recall pitch perfectly at least once. The study measured popular music, though, which would be different than the people you work with who are professional musicians. Still, I think you’d enjoy this study. Levitin’s interest is to unearth why only a small minority of people can retain such perfect pitch memory. It seems that they are recreating visual images form auditory experiences that support their memory retention. Levitin also theorises that with better musical training, more people might be taught to visualise musical pitch memory in the same way. This makes me wonder whether visualising techniques might enhance what you’re interested in? This study is free to read from the author’s website: http://goo.gl/AGn2qz

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By: Tecno Tecnonaut

Tecno Tecnonaut — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 10:46:01 +0000

Zuleyka Zevallos that’s interesting that earworms can just be music. Like I say all my earworms tend to be pop tunes. I listen to a lot of techno and DJ it as well so you would think that I would have a lot of loop based earworms but I don’t, still that’s individual differences I guess. Could it be that with a composer the repetitive earworm could be to do with them trying to create a new piece of music and its the minds way of trying out a new melody or something? That’s interesting about Eli Tripps observation – if I tell my partner I’ve had an earworm playing all day she does not want to know what it is as quite often it then becomes an earworm for her! Although unlike Eli it does not stop my earworm from playing! She said it’s like when someone yawns and then you end up yawning. I shall locate that series you suggested as it sounds interesting 🙂

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By: Deb Thurston

Deb Thurston — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 05:36:49 +0000

I’m a professional choral director, and I’m interested in the relationship between IMI and a musician’s capability to retain a pitch during rehearsal or performance. It seems to me that pitch retention is a subconscious activity, also… although it is a skill that a vocalist or chorister is keen to possess. In that way, it differs from IMI. I wonder if functional MRI studies might indicate what area or areas of the brain contribute to pitch retention. I assume that the Williamson study was unable to use fMRI as a tool in studying earworm phenomena. Thanks for your great article!

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By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 23:54:08 +0000

Word association earworm – thanks for sharing Skerdilajd Truja! Tearjerker is a great song to have stuck in your head, by the way.

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By: Zuleyka Zevallos

Zuleyka Zevallos — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:57:23 +0000

Eli Tripps This is hilarious! You’re an earworm genius. I may need to try this reverse contagion method on unwitting subjects. [Evil laughter earworms in the background]

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