Earworm

For other uses, see Earworm (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Earwig.

An earworm or brainworm,[1] also described as sticky music or stuck song syndrome,[2] is a catchy or memorable piece of music or saying that continuously occupies a person's mind even after it is no longer being played or spoken about.[3][4] Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI) is most common after earworms,[5][6][7][8][9] but INMI as a label is not solely restricted to earworms; musical hallucinations also fall into this category, although they are not the same thing.[6][10] Earworms are considered to be a common type of involuntary cognition.[11] Some of the phrases often used to describe earworms include "musical imagery repetition" and "involuntary musical imagery".[1][12][13]

The word earworm is a calque from the German Ohrwurm.[14][15] The earliest known English usage is in Desmond Bagley's 1978 novel Flyaway, where the author points out the German origin of his word.[16]

Researchers who have studied and written about the phenomenon include Theodor Reik,[17] Sean Bennett,[18] Oliver Sacks,[1] Daniel Levitin,[19] James Kellaris,[20] Philip Beaman,[21] Vicky Williamson,[22] Diana Deutsch,[23] and, in a more theoretical perspective, Peter Szendy,[24] along with many more. The phenomenon is distinct from palinacousis, a rare medical condition caused by damage to the temporal lobe of the brain that results in auditory hallucinations.[25]

  1. ^ a b c Sacks, Oliver (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. First Vintage Books. pp. 41–48. ISBN 978-1-4000-3353-9.
  2. ^ Chatterjee, Rhitu (March 7, 2012). "Earworms: Why songs get stuck in our heads". BBC News.
  3. ^ "Oxford Dictionaries: "earworm"". Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
  4. ^ Halpern, Andrea R.; Bartlett, James C. (April 1, 2011). "The Persistence of Musical Memories: A Descriptive Study of Earworms". Music Perception. 28 (4): 425–432. doi:10.1525/mp.2011.28.4.425. ISSN 0730-7829.
  5. ^ Jakubowski, Kelly; Finkel, Sebastian; Stewart, Lauren; Müllensiefen, Daniel (2017). "Dissecting an earworm: Melodic features and song popularity predict involuntary musical imagery" (PDF). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. 11 (2). American Psychological Association (APA): 122–135. doi:10.1037/aca0000090. ISSN 1931-390X.
  6. ^ a b Williams, T. I. (2015). "The classification of involuntary musical imagery: The case for earworms" (PDF). Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain. 15 (1). American Psychological Association: 5–13. doi:10.1037/pmu0000082.
  7. ^ Williamson, Victoria J.; Jilka, Sagar R.; Fry, Joshua; Finkel, Sebastian; Müllensiefen, Daniel; Stewart, Lauren (September 27, 2011). "How do "earworms" start? Classifying the everyday circumstances of Involuntary Musical Imagery". Psychology of Music. 40 (3): 259–284. doi:10.1177/0305735611418553. S2CID 145466099.
  8. ^ Filippidi, I.; Timmers, R. (2017). "Relationships between everyday music listening habits and involuntary musical imagery: Does music listening condition musical imagery?". Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain. 27 (4). American Psychological Association: 312–326. doi:10.1037/pmu0000194. S2CID 149182669.
  9. ^ Jakubowski, Kelly; Farrugia, Nicolas; Halpern, Andrea R.; Sankarpandi, Sathish K.; Stewart, Lauren (November 1, 2015). "The speed of our mental soundtracks: Tracking the tempo of involuntary musical imagery in everyday life". Memory & Cognition. 43 (8): 1229–1242. doi:10.3758/s13421-015-0531-5. ISSN 1532-5946. PMC 4624826. PMID 26122757.
  10. ^ Hemming, J.; Merrill, J. (2015). "On the distinction between involuntary musical imagery, musical hallucinosis, and musical hallucinations". Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain. 25 (4). American Psychological Association: 435–442. doi:10.1037/pmu0000112.
  11. ^ Moeck, E. K.; Hyman, I. E; Takarangi, M. K. Y. (2018). "Understanding the overlap between positive and negative involuntary cognitions using instrumental earworms". Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain. 28 (3). American Psychological Association: 164–177. doi:10.1037/pmu0000217. S2CID 150180837.
  12. ^ Liikkanen, L. A. (2012). "Inducing involuntary musical imagery: An experimental study" (PDF). Musicae Scientiae. 16 (2): 217–234. doi:10.1177/1029864912440770. S2CID 146451325.
  13. ^ Liikkanen, Lassi A. (2008). "Music in Everymind: Commonality of Involuntary Musical Imagery" (PDF). Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC 10). Sapporo, Japan: 408–412. ISBN 978-4-9904208-0-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2014.
  14. ^ "earworm" Archived October 15, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, wordspy.com
  15. ^ "Ohrwurm", www.dwds.de
  16. ^ Kruszelnicki, Dr Karl (November 29, 2016). "The earworms you can't get out of your head". ABC Radio National. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
  17. ^ Reik, Theodor (1953). The Haunting Melody: Psychoanalytic Experiences in Life and Music. New York: Grove Press.
  18. ^ Bennett, Sean (August 30, 2002). Musical Imagery Repetition (Master). Cambridge University.
  19. ^ Levitin, Daniel (2006). This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. New York: Dutton, Penguin. ISBN 0452288525. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
  20. ^ Kellaris, James J. (Winter 2001). "Identifying Properties of Tunes That Get 'Stuck in Your Head'". Proceedings of the Society for Consumer Psychology. Scottsdale, Arizona: American Psychological Society: 66–67.
  21. ^ Beaman CP, Williams TI (November 2010). "Earworms (stuck song syndrome): towards a natural history of intrusive thoughts". British Journal of Psychology. 101 (Pt 4): 637–653. doi:10.1348/000712609X479636. PMID 19948084.
  22. ^ Chatterjee, Rhitu (March 6, 2012). "Earworms: Why songs get stuck in our heads". BBC News. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  23. ^ Deutsch, D. (2019). "Catchy Music and Earworms". Musical Illusions and Phantom Words: How Music and Speech Unlock Mysteries of the Brain. Oxford University Press. pp. 116–127. ISBN 9780190206833. LCCN 2018051786.
  24. ^ Szendy, Peter (2012). Hits. Philosophy in the Jukebox. translated by William Bishop. Fordham University Press.
  25. ^ Moore, David R.; Fuchs, Paul Paul Albert; Rees, Adrian; Palmer, Alan; Plack, Christopher J. (January 21, 2010). The Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science: The Auditory Brain. Oxford University Press. p. 535. ISBN 9780199233281. Retrieved July 3, 2013.