Wk 10 - Earworms Flashcards
(25 cards)
Where does the word Earworm originate from
Das Ohr - the ear
Der Wurm - the worm
German name for Earwig
What are earworms?
“A piece of music that repeats a number of times in the head, without being recalled voluntarily” (Williams, 2015)
complete musical phrase, e.g. chorus
avg loop around 15-30 seconds (length of STM)
History of the Earworm
Edgar Allen Poe, 1845/1938:
His quote suggests
1. Unwanted and intrusive in nature
2. Long term memory
3. Quality of music irrelevant in terms of it’s appearance
Phenomenology
earworm is subjective - reliant on self observation studies
majority of early studies were questionnaires, diary and experience sampling, intensive interviews
very common phenomenon - between 72-92% of ppts report experiencing regular earworms
Predisposition
musicality - active musical interest/engagement, training
The perpetual music track (Brown, 2006)
constant presence of music in head (extreme end of earworms)
music changes over time
rather like having a soundtrack to one’s daily life
not unpleasant or unwanted - though still involuntary
perhaps earworm adjacent?
musical characteristics
difficult to identify
Jakubowski et al. (2017) compared 100 songs with of matched songs of a similar style
- tend to be recent and popular songs
- faster tempo
- common melodic contours
- vocals
- easier to sing
- notes longer and closer in pitch
- song interrupted before it finishes - Zeigarnik effect
Triggers
recency effect - makes sense that involuntary musical recollections will be more frequent for recently encountered tunes
does not require deliberate encoding
cue-driven memory:
- mneumonic associations or memory cues
- affective and attentional states
- situations with particularly high or low cognitive load
- Von Restorff effect
- May be decreased by subsequent auditory stimuli
Sticky Tunes - Beaman (2018)
earworms triggered in same way as other involuntary recollections but differ in sensory experience and emotion reactions triggered
three subjective appraisals for sticky tunes
tune is evaluated neutrally
- motivated to encourage or reject
- won’t recur unless they ruminate on tune
- can shift to pos or neg depending on recurrence
tune is evaluated positively
- memory may be consciously reactivated
- become voluntary
tune is evaluated negatively
- active suppression
- counterproductive as attempted suppression can make thought more, rather than less, accessible
Beaman and Williams (2010)
where ppts actively engaged in displacement activity increased the duration of the earworm
Beaman and Williams (2013)
thought suppression measured by the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI) correlated with measures of the length, disruptiveness, and difficulty in dismissing earworms
Association here is between desire to supress thoughts and earworms regardless of displacement activity employed
Beaman et al. (2015)
played ppts a ‘target’ piece of music
explicitly asked them not to think about it for 3 minutes
ppts pressed one key when they “thought” about the song and another when they “heard” it
nine key presses on avg over the 3 mins, approx 3/4 of which were ‘heard’
what is ironic mental control AKA white bear theory
a goal to rid oneself of an unwanted thought
effort to control our minds often results in opposite outcome of what we intended
Beaman et al. (2018) study
same as 2015 study but used Shape of You by Ed Sheeran
also completed the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale (BAIS) - measures vividness and control of auditory imagery
both scales were significantly and positively correlated to incidence of earworms
Beaman et al. (2018) continued
counterintuitive results - would expect ppts who scored higher on control scale to be able to suppress the earworms
agrees with findings that musical interest/training correlates with earworm incidence
Farrugia et al. (2015) - scores on the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index predict earworm frequency
Suggests cognitive bias rather than environmental triggering
Beaman et al. (2015) continued
Proposes that the distinction between goal to extinguish earworm and the earworm itself is important
they exist independently of each other
goal exists in a ‘goal buffer’
earworm exists in storage systems related to auditory imagery and memory
“checking in” to see how you are getting on with your goal, as discussed above, may prove counterproductive by cueing the earworm to ‘replay’
Stamping out the Worm - Hyman et al. (2013)
Manipulated cognitive load
predicted that intrusive songs would be more common when ppts attempted challenging anagrams, struggled to successfully complete them, and left more cognitive resources open for mental music
Floridou et al. (2017)
ppts watched two film trailers both with music - Pretty Women (vocal) Casino Royal (instrumental)
then performed 5 minute dot task with 4 conditions
largest effect found for medium and high load conditions both of which required additional phonological processes
ppts reported twice as many occurrences of the vocal music than the instrumental
Stamping out the worm
good evidence that interference of voluntary auditory imagery can take place as long as same modality
e.g. verbal and auditory imagery disrupted by unrelated mouthing of a sequence of letters or vigorous chewing action
in a series of experiments Beaman et al. (2015,2018) therefore explored whether chewing gum might disrupt the incidence of earworms
Killingly et al. (2021)
catchy and non-catchy songs rated on whether easy to sing along to, comulsion to sing along upon hearing song, how well known song was, how likely it was that song would get stuck in their head
exp 1: listened to song either before or during completion of a serial number recall task (note this involves sub-vocal rehearsal)
- on some trials the song was truncated during last chorus (to test Zeigarnik effect)
findings suggest that songs which are more catchy and which have been truncated tend to remain active in phonological working memory
Beaman’s Earworm Model (2018)
way of pulling things together
individual differences / nature of song
environment (cue) - assembly of musical memory
positive effect - yes - rehearse tune - repeats over time
positive effect - no - suppress tune - monitor success - tune repeats over time (ironic process)
what episodes/disorders are related to a predisposition of earworms
High obsessive compulsion positively related to earworm frequency and disturbance (Mullensiefen et al., 2014)
small but sig relationship between propensity toward schizophrenic and hallucinatory episodes and intensity of the earworm experience (Beaman & Williams, 2013)
which auditory processing areas in brain have a relationship with earworm frequency
Heschl’s gyrus and anterior pre-supplementary motor area
