Why does a melody stick in your mind? (Part 2)

Studying earworms (or ‘brainworms’ as Oliver Sacks names them) is a topic that would make an ideal PhD thesis: it is a striking, yet unexplained phenomenon, and a research question that is around for quite a while, and (embarrassingly for music cognition) without a sufficient answer. One of the reasons might be - comparable to studying déjà vu’s - that to think of an experiment that can capture the phenomenon when it occurs, is quite a challenge. And, as far as I am aware, no explanation has appeared, as yet, in the scientific journals.

Nevertheless, there is something to say about the structural aspects of the melodies that tend to function as earworms. Most sticky songs are relative simple in terms of their harmonic structure, but have a striking moment - the hook of the song. It is the point in the music where something catchy happens. It is precisely the moment where you would start singing a song from memory (see more at [1]). That said: this is just an after-the-fact interpretation, not a explanation.

P.S. Interested in earworms? Follow the discussion at Facebook.

[1] Dutch tv item (with subtitles) on the earworm.

Too catchy a tune ? (Part 2)

Below the fragment belonging to the blog entry of two weeks ago on the earworm:

Too catchy a tune? (earworm)

It’s a well-known phenomenon in media land that once you contributed to a TV item on a compelling —general interest— question, people will return to you with the same question over and over again, and, basically, wanting you to redo the same answer :-)

It happened to me a few years ago when I was asked to contribute to a Dutch TV item on the question why some melodies stick in your mind. My first answer was: we do not know. Since, if we knew, an ‘earworm’-generating computer program would exist that can generate melodies that are guaranteed to stick in people’s mind for days. In this particular case however, I’m sure nobody would mind. Unfortunately, now —four years later— still little is understood of the phenomenon. [And yes, again on Dutch TV]

What we do know —mainly from questionnaire-style research— is that most people suffer from the ‘earworm’ phenomenon (also referred to as brainworm, cognitive itch, or musical imagery repetition), females slightly more than males. And that the tunes that spontaneously pop-up in one’s mind are generally not the most striking compositions. Actually, they are commonly reported as being simply irritating (see examples on link below).

Why does this happen? And what does it tells us about our cognition? And why does it happen with music, and significantly less with text or images? What is in the musical structure of that particular fragment that makes it spontaneously pop-up from memory? PhD-students in cognitive science looking for an exciting relatively unexplored topic in music (neuro)cognition, jump on it!

Dutch webpage on this topic.