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Psychology of Music
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How do ''earworms'' start? Classifying the everyday circumstances of Involuntary
Musical Imagery
Victoria J. Williamson, Sagar R. Jilka, Joshua Fry, Sebastian Finkel, Daniel Müllensiefen and
Lauren Stewart
Psychology of Music 2012 40: 259 originally published online 27 September 2011
DOI: 10.1177/0305735611418553
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Article
How do “earworms” start?
Classifying the everyday
circumstances of Involuntary
Musical Imagery
Psychology of Music
40(3) 259–284
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0305735611418553
pom.sagepub.com
Victoria J. Williamson, Sagar R. Jilka, Joshua Fry,
Sebastian Finkel, Daniel Müllensiefen and
Lauren Stewart
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Abstract
Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI) or “earworms” describes the experience whereby a tune comes
into the mind and repeats without conscious control. The present article uses an inductive, generative,
grounded theory-based qualitative analysis to classify reports of everyday INMI circumstances, and
creates graphical models that determine their relative frequency within two population samples;
listeners to the BBC radio station 6 Music and an online survey. Within the two models, four abstract
categories were defined that described the characteristics of the circumstances surrounding the onset
of INMI episodes; Music exposure, Memory triggers, Affective states, and Low attention states respectively.
We also note the variety of musical media by which exposure to a tune results in an INMI episode and
discuss the impact of musical engagement on INMI experiences. The findings of the present study
are considered within a framework of involuntary retrieval theory from both the autobiographical
and semantic memory literatures. In addition, the results highlight the potential facilitative effects of
varying affective and attentional states on INMI episodes.
Keywords
affective states, attention states, everyday music listening, involuntary autobiographical/semantic memory
(IAM/ISM), involuntary musical imagery (INMI)
Introduction
People spend a great deal of time engaged in internally-directed thought (Singer, 1966), but
not all of this “internal mentation” (Andrews-Hanna, Reidler, Huang, & Buckner, 2010) is
under conscious control. Involuntary, spontaneous cognitions are common, everyday
Corresponding author:
Victoria Williamson, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London, New Cross, London, UK.
[email: [email protected]]
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Psychology of Music 40(3)
experiences that occur against a backdrop of deliberate goal-directed mental processes
(Christoff, Ream, & Gabrieli, 2004; Klinger & Cox, 1987). Musical imagery is associated with a
unique form of spontaneous cognition: the anecdotal experience of having a tune stuck in the
head. Involuntary musical imagery (INMI) is a ubiquitous experience, yet it is one that has so
far received minimal attention from psychological research. However, thanks to the creativity
of experimental designs that draw from both quantitative and qualitative traditions and the
growth of large-scale internet-based data collection methods there is now a series of findings
that outline the basic demographics of INMI including to whom it happens, how often it
happens, and how long it persists (Bailes, 2007; Beaman & Williams, 2010; Brown, 2006;
Halpern & Bartlett, 2011; Kellaris, 2001; Liikkanen, 2008, 2009). The scope of the present
study was to build on this foundation of knowledge and to explore the next logical question of
why INMI happens at any one point in time. The aim of the present study was to abstract and
classify the contextual circumstances associated with the onset of INMI episodes, using
qualitative methods in a large sample of individuals from the general population, in order to
better understand both the personal and situational factors that facilitate INMI.
Musical imagery
Musical imagery is defined as the introspective persistence of a musical experience in the absence
of direct sensory instigation of that experience (Intons-Peterson, 1992). Musical imagery can be
purposefully generated for a variety of reasons; for example, imagery can be employed to
mentally rehearse and recall tunes in order to reproduce them or make decisions about them, a
facility that has been exploited by studies of musical memory (Brown, Martinez, Hodges, Fox, &
Parsons, 2004; Gaab & Schlaug, 2003; Halpern & Zatorre, 1999; Koelsch et al., 2008; Levitin,
1994; Levitin & Cook, 1996; Vines, Schnider, & Schlaug, 2006). Musicians can also utilize
imagery in order to aid their practice (Chaffin & Logan, 2006; Freymuth, 1999; Holmes, 2005;
Wöllner & Williamon, 2007) and in some cases are able to generate musical imagery from score,
an ability known as notational audiation (Brodsky, Henik, Rubinstein, & Zorman, 2003; Brodsky,
Kessler, Rubinstein, Ginsborg, & Henik, 2008; Highben & Palmer, 2004).
Elegant designs have been used to probe the content of musical imagery. Quantitative and
qualitative studies of inferential reports and behavioural studies of accuracy judgements have
suggested that musical imagery can be both vivid and veridical in multiple musical dimensions
such as pitch, rhythm, and, to a lesser extent, timbre (Bailes, 2006, 2007; Halpern, 1988;
Halpern, Zatorre, Bouffard, & Johnson, 2004; Janata & Paroo, 2006). Neuroimaging
experiments have reported evidence that the patterns of measurable brain activity are similar
regardless of whether music is actually heard or is just being imagined (Halpern & Zatorre,
1999; Herholz, Lappe, Knief, & Pantev, 2008; Kleber, Birbaumer, Veit, Trevorrow, & Lotze,
2007; Kraemer, Macrae, Green, & Kelley, 2005; Meyer, Elmer, Baumann, & Jancke, 2007;
Schurmann, Raij, Fujiki, & Hari, 2002; Zatorre & Halpern, 2005). The study of purposefully
generated musical imagery has therefore contributed much to understanding the processes
within auditory perceptual, memory and learning systems.
Involuntary musical imagery
A less well studied type of musical imagery is that of spontaneous or involuntary musical
imagery (INMI: Liikkanen, 2008), a phenomenon also dubbed “brain worms,” “sticky music”
(Sacks, 2007), “cognitive itch” (Kellaris, 2008) and “stuck song syndrome” (Levitin, 2006). All
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Williamson et al.
these terms describe the experience of a piece of music that comes unbidden into the mind and
repeats outside of conscious control (Beaman & Williams, 2010). Anecdotally INMI is a
common phenomenon that is most frequently described in the non-scientific literature as
“earworms” (a direct translation for the German word Ohrwurm); however, peer-reviewed
studies of INMI have only begun to emerge in the last five years, beginning with a detailed,
introspective study of personal INMI. Brown (2006) noted the details of the musical dimensions
within his own INMI episodes (pitch, rhythm and timbre variations) and commented extensively
on the apparent veridical, perceptual nature of the experience. Such observations suggest
parallels with consciously controlled musical imagery; however, conclusions from this study
are constrained to the subjective observations of a single individual’s experiences.
Going beyond a strictly personal account of INMI, Bailes (2007) conducted an experience
sampling study with 11 undergraduate and postgraduate music students that provided useful
insights into INMI, although the study itself was focused on general musical imagery.
Participants were contacted randomly over a period of seven days and asked to report their
current experience of musical imagery. Many of these episodes could be classed as INMI, a
supposition supported by the finding that the majority of reported imagery consisted of
“repeated fragment[s]” (2007, p.562). A significantly high proportion of imagery was
recognizable to the participants (89 vs. 18 unrecognizable tunes) denoting the important link
between INMI and familiarity within long-term memory. Moreover, 58% of participants
reported an association between hearing or performing music recently and later hearing it as
imagery. But without being able to distinguish the INMI episodes from purposefully generated
imagery there is a limit to the wider conclusions about INMI that can be drawn from this study.
The first large-scale empirical study of specifically involuntary music imagery (INMI) was an
internet survey of 12,420 Finnish internet users conducted by Liikkanen (2008). The purpose
of this study was to quantify the frequency of INMI and to classify the population demographics
(age, gender, personality, and musical and linguistic competence) of those who experience
frequent INMI episodes: 91.7% of people experienced INMI at least once a week, with 33.2%
once a day and 26.1% several times a day. Familiar music dominated the reports, re-emphasizing
a role for memory in INMI episodes, although 26% reported that the music they heard was
“new.” Liikkanen (2008) also reported non-linear but significantly positive relationships
between INMI frequency and musical education, and the use of portable music devices.
Three more recent studies have confirmed many of Liikkanen’s (2008) findings and have
also suggested additional factors that may influence INMI experiences. In the first internetbased experimental induction of INMI, Liikkanen (2009) asked participants to complete
written song lyrics, a variation of a standard method known as cued recall. They then completed
a short filler task before being asked whether they had experienced any INMI relating to the
cued recall procedure. On average, 58.35% of participants reported INMI from the cued songs,
15.75% reported INMI from other songs and 25.9% reported no INMI, a result that demonstrates
the comparative ease with which INMI can be triggered by reading song lyrics. Liikkanen also
counterbalanced the lyrics in the cued recall presentation and showed a significant recency
effect relating to his induction paradigm. Beaman & Williams (2010) conducted a survey (N =
103) and diary study (N = 12) investigating the frequency and prevalence of INMI in a similar
way to Liikkanen (2008), but with additional focus on the details of everyday patterns of INMI
occurrence. They noted that 43.6% of participants reported repetition of the same few tunes,
underlining the importance of familiarity in INMI experiences in everyday life. Finally, Wammes
and Barušs (2009) sought to classify different dimensions of INMI by developing the Musical
Imagery Questionnaire. They carried out factor analysis on reports from 67 volunteers and
262
generated six dimensions, two of which relate to as yet unexplored aspects of INMI contexts:
The first, “entertainment,” suggests INMI has a functional role to play in everyday life, as it is
linked to personal preferences and often appears in situations where external stimulation is
comparatively minimal. The second, “completeness,” implies in part that aspects of INMI can
reflect current issues in an individual’s life.
Research questions and methodology
In summary, INMI episodes are a common, everyday experience for the majority of people
(Liikkanen, 2008, 2009). Studies have so far documented patterns of INMI appearance within
individuals (Brown, 2006) and across populations (Liikkanen 2008; Beaman & Williams,
2010) and demonstrated that memory appears to have a key role in the experience both
through familiarity and recency effects (Bailes, 2007; Liikkanen, 2008, 2009). However,
despite the growing number of findings that have shed light on the unique and prevalent
nature of INMI episodes, no study has yet examined the contextual circumstances associated
with the everyday occurrence of INMI. The present study therefore began with the following
broad research question: What types of contextual circumstances facilitate the onset of an
INMI episode?
The aim of the present study was to determine whether there are consistent patterns of
everyday experience that are associated with the onset of an INMI episode in a large sample of
individuals comprising mixed age, gender, and musical training and engagement backgrounds.
Retrospective reports of INMI episodes were gathered via the internet, and an explorative,
inductive paradigm was designed to isolate the contextual circumstances of each INMI episode.
While there are methodological limitations to retrospective studies of experience, relying as
they do on recall of an episode, such reporting methods have proved to be a valuable source of
data on the experience of INMI (Bailes, 2007; Beaman & Williams, 2010; Liikkanen, 2008,
2009) and are currently the only real-world measure of INMI experiences that are conducive
to large-scale study.
A grounded theory approach was selected for the data analysis of the participant reports.
Grounded theory is a logical, linear process that is ideal for examining broad, qualitative
research questions (Charmaz, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Coding, the main method within
the grounded theory approach, allows large amounts of textual data to be synthesized by an
open and transparent method that is documented at every stage. By this process the researcher
is able to summarize, categorize and abstract a small number of themes that describe a widerange of experiences, culminating eventually in the emergence of a general empirically testable
theory or series of theories regarding the initial research question, which are fundamentally
grounded in the data. This makes grounded theory an ideal method for the present study; it
provides an opportunity to classify the everyday contextual circumstances of the INMI
experiences reported by hundreds of individuals and to generate testable theories as to the
personal and situational factors that facilitate INMI occurrence.
Method
Data collection and participants
There were two separate stages of data collection, which in turn generated two corpora of
INMI data. The first corpus (“6 Music”) was provided by listeners to the BBC radio station 6
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Music. 6 Music run a feature on their morning breakfast show1 where listeners can contact
the presenter to describe their experiences of “earworms.” There is no standard script for the
earworm feature, but the breakfast show presenter encourages listeners to contact him if
they have a tune stuck in their head, and invites them to describe further details of the episode
such as the circumstances under which it arose and how long it has been going on. These
anonymous data, in the form of texts and emails, were provided by the BBC between June and
August 2009 and February and August 2010. An additional point of data collection was a
dedicated online short-form located on the 6 Music website (see Appendix 1) where individuals
could briefly report the circumstances of their INMI episode. The data supplied directly from
6 Music (texts and emails) and the four questions from the 6 Music online short-form were
treated in the same manner for the purposes of data analysis; the responses to the four online
questions were collapsed into one paragraph and coded as one response. In total 2424 reports
were received from the BBC and the resulting corpus (both emails and short-forms) contained
the 333 reports where an individual provided information regarding the circumstances of
the INMI episode.
The nature of the anonymous email and text message collection from 6 Music meant that
no participant demographics were available. However, figures on general audience
characteristics are available from Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR2), which is the
official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. According to RAJAR, the
average 6 Music listener is 38 years old, with 54% of listeners aged between 25 and 44 years:
68% of 6 Music listeners are male and 78% fall within occupation social grades ABC1,3 which
includes the 55% of the population that work in managerial, professional, administrative and
clerical roles.
The second corpus (“Survey”) came from an online questionnaire specifically designed for
this research project (http://earwomery.com). The questionnaire sought basic demographic
information (age, gender, level of education and musical experience; see Appendix 2) and
included an optional request for information about a “recent earworm episode” (see Appendix 3).
The survey was promoted through various outlets and by a variety of methods including live
radio programmes and online features (including websites and blogs) across the BBC network,
as well as radio networks in the USA and Australia, emails to university departments in the UK,
USA, Europe and Australia, promotion across Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites,
and through leafleting in London, York and Birmingham.
The online survey was completed by 1308 individuals between May and September 2010,
of which 271 reports were analysed for the present study, where individuals had completed
the “recent earworm” page and provided information about the circumstances of the INMI
episode. Within the 271 participants, 117 were male and 152 were female (2 undisclosed),
and the average age was 36.30 years (SD: 12.13, range: 16–70, mode: 28). In terms of
education, 14 participants had completed secondary school, 51 had completed qualification
post-secondary school, 112 had completed an undergraduate degree, and 94 had completed
postgraduate education. In total, 238 (87.82%) people reported that they play or had played
a musical instrument. The average age for starting to play an instrument was 8.98 years and
the average length of time engaged in sustained musical activity was 11.20 years. Figure 1
shows the distribution of different categories of self-defined musicianship. Figures 2 and 3
relate only to those who identified themselves as musicians (from amateur to profession) and
show, respectively, the amount of time individuals spent practising during their time of selfdefined “sustained activity” and the amount of time currently spent practising an instrument
(or voice).
264
Percentage of individuals
35.00
31.73
28.41
30.00
25.00
20.00
15.00
16.24
10.70
8.49
10.00
4.43
5.00
0.00
Figure 1. The percentage of individuals who self-defined themselves according to pre-defined categories
of musicianship
40
35.71
35
31.09
30
25
21.85
20
15
10
5
7.56
3.78
0
1 hour per
month
1 hour per
week
15 mins per
day
1 hour per
day
2 hours per
day
Figure 2. The percentage of individuals who practised their instruments during their time of “sustained
activity,” grouped according to pre-defined periods of time
Data coding protocol
The 6 Music corpus was independently coded by two researchers, using NVivo 8 (QSR
International) and a grounded theory approach based on descriptions by Payne (2007) and
Charmaz (2008). The coding protocol comprised a four-stage inductive task, developed with
the aim of generating themes to describe the circumstances surrounding the onset of an
episode of INMI.
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Williamson et al.
45
40.76
40
35
30
25
20
15
13.03
15.97
15.55
10.92
10
3.78
5
0
Rarely
1 hour
per month
1 hour 15 mins per
per week
day
1 hour
per day
2 hours
per day
Figure 3. The percentage of individuals who are currently practising their instruments, grouped according
to pre-defined periods of time
In the first stage, each researcher used line-by-line open coding to define the context within
every INMI episode report. In the second stage, each researcher generated themes to “sort,
synthesize and organize [the] large amounts of data” that resulted from the line-by-line coding
(Charmaz, 2008, p. 92). This more focused stage allowed the researchers to frame their codes
as specifically as possible; a “theme” was defined as an accurate description of the circumstances
of an INMI episode, illustrated using as few words as possible. In the third stage the researchers
compared their generated themes in order to ensure that subjectivity of coding was kept to a
minimum. This stage resembled that of axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) as the
researchers aimed to specify their themes explicitly and to determine the nature of the links
between them. As part of the protocol, each researcher took turns in explaining and justifying
their themes according to the original empirical data. Throughout this process, labels were
agreed on and assigned to each theme. For example, the theme of “Sound association” was
decided upon to encapsulate the terms “Song to song connection” and “Similarity to heard
music,” which had been used independently by the two researchers in their coding. In the
fourth stage, both researchers revisited the original data together and agreed on the application
of these themes to the original coded reports. In the case of any disagreement between
researchers during this final stage of re-coding, a third independent observer judged the
disputed theme assignment. In total, 7 codes out of the 604 reports were resolved by the third
party – all to the satisfaction of both researchers.
Theory development during all four stages of coding was promoted through individual and
joint memo writing (preliminary analytic notes: see Charmaz, 2008) and through the
construction of hierarchical draft models that emerged based on the coding experiences of the
two researchers. In the draft hierarchical models several dominant and sub-dominant themes
emerged, with consistent patterns of coding. For example, the dominant theme of “Association”
was divisible into four discrete sub-dominant themes that related to different memory triggers
for INMI, namely persons, situations, sounds and words. The analysis of the 6 Music corpus
reached completion once the researchers had saturated the coding possibilities from the data,
each INMI report was assigned to a theme, the themes themselves had been clearly defined and
266
the relationships between the dominant themes and sub-dominant themes had been framed in
a larger emerging model.
Next, the researchers replicated stage 1 of the coding protocol upon the second corpus
(Survey). The purpose of analysing a second corpus of INMI reports was to determine whether
the themes generated within the first corpus (6 Music) were valid within a sample of INMI
reports gathered from a different population and using a different method. To this end, rather
than blind coding the researchers first coded the Survey corpus line-by-line using the generated
themes from the 6 Music corpus. If the researchers encountered a line that did not fit with the
generated themes, a new code was created. The new codes were then reviewed by the researchers
in a replication of stages 2 through 4 from the first corpus and were combined into two new
themes termed “Rhythm” and “Mind wandering.” Upon agreement over definitions for the two
new themes, the researchers ran a ‘double-check’ protocol through all the reports from both
corpora to ensure that the two new themes of “Rhythm” and “Mind wandering” had not been
overlooked in the first corpus.
During this final checking process, it emerged that many of the participants had reported
a variety of music media by which they heard tunes that were later associated with INMI.
Since there were consistent patterns of media experience within and across both corpora it
was decided to code these reports within both corpora as sub-dominant themes relating to
music exposure; these included public music, private music, radio, ring tones and video
media.
Results
The 6 Music corpus contained 333 reports that resulted in 942 codes, while the Survey corpus
contained 271 reports that resulted in 657 codes. The 6 Music corpus generated 24 themes and
the Survey corpus contributed two additional themes. The models shown in Figures 4 and 5
summarize the circumstances associated with INMI episodes, illustrating the weight of each
theme within the corpus (measured by the number of times it was coded), the hierarchical
relationships across dominant and sub-dominant themes, and the number of occasions where
different themes were coded together.
Although there was a great deal of similarity in the coding across the two models, there were
differences in the magnitude of some of the themes. In order to illustrate the differences between
the two corpora we compared the percentage of time that each theme was coded as a function
of the total number of codes (Table 1).
Themes: Definitions and exemplars
The grounded theory analysis carried out on the INMI reports resulted in the emergence of
eight dominant themes that describe the circumstances of INMI episodes (Recent, Repeated,
Association, Recollection, Anticipation, Affective state, Dreams and Mind wandering4), with
many of these also being divisible into sub-dominant themes. The eight dominant themes were
grouped into four abstract categories (Music exposure, Memory triggers, Affective states, and Low
attention states5), and these are listed below along with a description, a definition for each of the
themes, and an example of a report that was coded under each theme. Sub-dominant themes
are grouped with their original dominant theme apart from “Media” themes, which are
presented in a separate later section.
Figure 4. Illustrative model of the themes generated from analysis of the 6 Music corpus. Dominant themes are shown in capitalized bold. Media subdominant themes are illustrated with boxes and themes that emerged from analysis of the survey corpus are shown in diamonds. The numbers within all
themes indicate the number of codes assigned and their size is designed to illustrate relative magnitude (not to scale). The numbers across coding links
show the number of occasions when two themes were coded together. Coding links between dominant themes and sub-dominant themes are shown
with double arrows while hierarchical links between dominant and sub-dominant themes are illustrated with directional arrows. Automatic associations
between dominant and sub-dominant themes are indicated with straight lines (relevant to affective states and association types). Coding links are only
shown if there were more than three occasions where two items in question were coded together
Williamson et al.
267
Figure 5. Illustrative model of the themes generated from analysis of the Survey corpus. Refer to Figure 4 for details. In addition: themes and coding
links are only shown if there were more than three occasions where two items in question were coded together. Not shown in this corpus is theme
“Performance” where an INMI experience was linked to a performance of music (this theme was coded twice)
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Williamson et al.
Table 1. Comparison of the number of times each of the INMI themes were reported for both models
(6 Music: N = 333, and Survey: N = 271). Calculation shown represents the number of times a theme was
coded divided by the total number of codes in the corpus, converted to a percentage
Themes
Percentage of codes in
Model 1: 6 Music
Percentage of codes in
Model 2: Survey
Affective state
Mood
Emotion
Stress
Surprise
Anticipation
Association
Person
Rhythm
Situation
Sound
Word
Dreams
Mind wandering
Recent exposure
Recollection
Repeated exposure
Media
Contagion
Learning
Live Music
Private music
Public music
Radio
Ringtone
Video media
2.55
0.32
0.42
0.74
0.42
1.91
16.88
2.97
0.42
8.07
2.87
8.81
2.02
0.11
20.49
1.70
5.73
3.20
1.67
0.61
0.76
0.00
0.46
15.22
2.59
1.22
4.57
1.52
8.07
0.46
1.98
24.51
2.13
9.74
2.44
0.64
6.79
3.93
1.17
2.12
0.74
5.73
1.52
1.67
2.59
4.11
0.76
6.39
0.30
3.65
Music exposure. The most frequently generated themes in both corpora related to hearing music
that later occurred as INMI. This category was termed Music exposure and was divided into the
two dominant themes of “Recent” and “Repeated.” These two themes were commonly coded
together in reports but were found to be divisible in the analysis as two independent aspects of
music exposure that participants associated with the onset of an episode of INMI.
• Recent exposure – An individual reports that they recently heard music that later
appeared in an episode of INMI
My bloody earworm is that bloody George Harrison song you played yesterday. Woke at 4.30 this
morning with it going round me head. PLEASE DON’T EVER PLAY IT AGAIN!! (6 Music)
• Repeated exposure – An individual reports hearing the INMI music on multiple
occasions prior to the onset of an INMI episode
“Duck tales” by Donald Duck and his nephews. It’s driving me mad; my 3 yr old has got the DVD on
repeat. I know it’s not a proper song but it’s a proper ear worm. (6 Music)
270
Memory triggers. The second most frequent group of generated themes in both corpora related
to memory activity. A crucial difference between the Music exposure codes and the Memory
trigger codes was that in the latter participants did not report that they had recently heard the
music that featured in their INMI episode. This category was divided into three themes,
“Association,” “Recollection” and “Anticipation.”
Within the dominant theme of “Association” there were four sub-dominant themes that describe
occasions where INMI was linked to seen or spoken language (“Word association”), the sight or
mention of a specific individual (“Person association”), the context in which the respondent finds
themselves (“Situational association”), or to hearing an auditory stimulus that was not the INMI
tune, but that could include other music as well as environmental sounds and isolated rhythms
(“Sound association”). The theme of “Recollection” marked occasions when participants experienced
the onset of a related episode of INMI as a result of engaging in personal “mental time travel,” or
episodic recall from their own life (autobiographical memory) (Tulving, 2002). The theme of
“Anticipation” represented occasions where acts of spontaneous prospective memory, retrieving
memory for an upcoming event, were connected to a tune that was later experienced as INMI.
• Association – A dominant theme representing four sub-dominant themes that relate to
ways in which stimuli from the environment, other than the music itself, can trigger an
INMI tune.
• Person – The INMI tune is linked to a sighting, mention of or thoughts about a person
(including the song artist).
My earworm today is “This Charming Man” by The Smiths because every time I see David
Cameron, that song just appears in my head, for some particular reason. (6 Music)
• Situation – An individual reports that their situation or environment is a trigger for
the music experienced in the INMI episode.
Anika Moa “Dreams in my head.” I listened to the song non-stop about 2 years ago just before I
got together with my ex-boyfriend and I really liked him and now that I have similar feelings for a
new person it has started coming into my head even though I haven’t listened to it in years.
(Survey: Female, 22, Amateur musician)
• Word – The title or lyrics within the INMI are linked to a word or series of words that
the person either sees or hears. Items within this theme are also coded under
Situation if the description of the situation in question is directly related to the
words of the INMI song title or lyrics.
Michael Jackson PYT (Pretty Young Thing). On my journey, I read a number plate on a car that
ended in the letters “EYC” which is NOTHING LIKE “PYT” but for some unknown reason, there it
was – the song was in my head. (Survey: Female, 29, Music-loving non-musician)
[Word and Situation] Today is the day I start to reassemble the book I was writing, having lost
10,000+ words when my Mac was stolen a couple of weeks ago – it’s a long, painful journey and
so my earworm du jour is naturally “Paperback Writer.” (6 Music)
• Sound – An individual hears a song that is similar to the INMI tune (either in form or
by nature of being performed by the same artist) or an environmental sound that
reminds them of the INMI.
A phone on a nearby desk at work sounds like the very beginning of “24 Hours to Tulsa” which
gives me a permanent earworm. I’ve since moved desks so I’m not constantly haunted by Gene
Pitney. (6 Music)
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• Includes “Rhythm” – An individual’s INMI episode is triggered by a heard or felt
rhythm or beat that resembles that within the INMI tune.
Tinie Tempah “Pass out Chorus” … because I was banging my thumbs against the desk in the Tinie
Tempah Pass out beat. (Survey: Male, 25, Non-musician)
• Recollection – The INMI episode is related to the experience of personal “mental
time travel” (Tulving 2002), defined as retrieval from autobiographical memory.
Their earworm is: Tune “Portsmouth”
What were they doing when they noticed it: First time I was a passenger in a car in Blackpool being
driven along a particular road while the tune was playing on the car radio – about 1974.
What triggered it: I get it every time I travel along the same road in Blackpool, seldom anywhere else.
When it happens, it takes about 24 hours to disappear. (6 Music Short Forms)
• Anticipation – An individual reports recalling details from an upcoming event that is
connected to a tune, which is later experienced as an INMI episode. Usually this is a Live
music event.
Going to Hyde Park to see Pearl Jam on Friday- so excited that I might even bite through
my leather restraints! My earworm is still “Alive” [by] Pearl Jam and has been for days.
(6 Music)
Affective states. The third dominant theme to emerge from the grounded theory analysis related
to different affective states being associated with the onset of an episode of INMI. This theme
represents four sub-dominant themes that describe different ways in which feelings and
subjective reactions are associated with INMI.
• Mood – An individual states that their mood is associated with the INMI. No assumptions
are made about mood given circumstances; the person has to overtly mention a mood
state.
Prokofiev “Montagues and Capulets” opening theme I was writing an email about a distressing
subject. I suspect the mood of the piece matched my mood at the time. (Survey: 29, Serious amateur
musician)
• Stress – An individual reports experiencing anxiety or trauma at the time of the INMI
episode.
My ear worm is “Nathan Jones” by Bananarama. I first caught it in 1989 during my GCSE chemistry
exam and have been plagued by it in moments of extreme stress since, e.g. wedding, childbirth etc. (6
Music)
• Emotion– An individual mentions that the onset of an emotional state precedes the onset
of an INMI episode. An emotion state is defined by the presence of a clear trigger event,
as opposed to a mood state where no cause need be identified (based on definition of
mood and emotion by Ekman, 1999).
I just can’t stop thinking about MJ [Michael Jackson]. I just keep getting sadder! “Man in the Mirror”
has been playing on my mind ever since I heard. (6 Music)
• Surprise – An individual reports a surprise reaction to hearing the tune that is later
experienced as INMI.
272
Having heard some Frank Turner at the petrol station on Sunday – somewhat to my surprise.
The soft guitar has melted into my consciousness and regurgitated itself as an earworm. (6
Music)
Low attention states. The final dominant theme to emerge in the grounded theory analysis
described reports whereby an episode of INMI occurred under, or was related to, circumstances
where attentional demand was low.
• Dreams – A person reports that their INMI is connected to events in a dream. Dreams
are not coded under Music exposure because the individual did not hear the music in
the environment.
My ear worm is “Mulder and Scully” by Catatonia. In fact I dreamt about running through woods and
this was the sound track in my head. (6 Music)
• Mind wandering – The start of the INMI episode is marked by a period of absentmindedness or engagement in monotonous tasks.
K’naan “Waving Flag.” ‘So wave your flag, wave your flag ...’ …in laboratory, doing repetitive
task that I am familiar with enough to go “on autopilot.” (Survey: Female, 24, Amateur
musician)
Music media and INMI
Within the dominant theme of “Music exposure” (“Recent” and “Repeated”), eight categories
were identified and abstracted that describe the ways in which people hear music that is later
experienced as INMI.
• Private music – The INMI episode music has been heard in a private situation, such as in
the car or at a birthday party.
I’ve got “ch-ch-ch-changes” by David Bowie as a repetitive ear worm, because it was the last song I
heard before the battery on my IPod ran out on a very long and lonely cycle. (6 Music)
• Public music – The INMI episode music has been heard in a public place, such as a
restaurant, shop or gym (distinct from Live Music).
My earworm today is “Paint it Black,” thanks to my gym class which plays a well dodgy version of it.
(6 Music)
• Radio – The INMI episode music has been heard on the radio. Not classified as Public or
Private music unless specified.
My earworm this morning is Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” in my head since someone played it on
Radio 2 Saturday afternoon. (6 Music)
• Live music – The INMI episode music has been heard or will soon be heard in a live concert
setting.
Brought about by the anticipation of seeing The National in Brighton tonight I have their “Mistaken
for Strangers” on a permanent loop in my head. (6 Music)
• Ring tones – The INMI episode music has been heard as a ringtone.
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Williamson et al.
I managed to work during my “extra week” down in hotel reception and the driver for the hotel
had on his mobile, “Ring of Fire” by the late great Johnny Cash. And can’t get it out my head! (6
Music)
• Video media (TV/film/internet sites) – The INMI episode music has been heard through
performances in the visual media.
Chopin “Prelude in C sharp minor, No.44” – Intro and as far through as I can get with memory. I was
listening to it over and over on YouTube – Ivo Poglereich, and wishing to learn it on the piano. (Survey:
Male, 31, Amateur musician)
• Contagion – The INMI episode music has been heard due to another person humming,
singing or playing the tune (distinct from Private music or Public music).
Guy behind me in the queue at Boots yesterday was humming Cream’s “Sunshine of your love.” I’ve
been humming it ever since. (6 Music)
• Learning – The INMI tune has been heard because the individual is trying to learn how to
perform the music in question.
Travelling down to Norfolk this morning for a conference, spent way too much time learning new
songs to show off with a guitar in the evening. Consequently have “Ih-Ah” by Devin Townsend
wedged in my brain. (6 Music)
Themes and background variables
Post hoc analysis was carried out on the Survey corpus data in order to determine whether
there were any relationships between INMI themes and the background participant variables
of gender, age, education level, musical education (“yes” or “no”), self-defined musicality, and
for musicians only, the number of years spent playing and the average amount of time spent
practising an instrument during their period of “sustained activity,” and age of commencing
practice. Only the INMI themes of “Recent exposure,” “Repeated exposure,” “Word association,”
“Person association” and “Situation association” were included in the analysis; low numbers
of codes within cells prevented analysis of the remaining themes.6 Logistic regressions were
carried out to determine relationships between the INMI themes and continuous background
variables, while Pearson”s Chi square tests were utilized with the categorical variables. No
significant relationships emerged in either analysis. Finally, continuous variables were also
assigned to categories7 for Chi square analysis, in order to determine whether relationships
existed at this level of power: Age was categorized into five groups (16–24, 25–34, 35–44,
45–54 and 55–70 years), time spent playing an instrument into six groups (<5, 6–10, 11–15,
16–20, 21–30, >30 years), and age of commencement into four groups (categorized into four
groups of <5, 6–10, 11–18, >18 years). As before, however, no relationships were found in
this analysis.
Discussion
The aim of the present article was to use an inductive, generative grounded theory-based
coding analysis in order to abstract and categorize the contextual circumstances of INMI
episodes, and to determine their relative frequency in everyday life. The data presented in the
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two resulting models identify four key categories of themes that contextualize an INMI episode
(Music exposure, Memory triggers, Affective states, and Low attention states) and denote a
hierarchy of relative frequency between them. These themes will each be discussed individually,
culminating in a summary of a grounded theory as to why INMI occurs at any one given point
in everyday life.
Summary of themes
The majority of INMI reports in the present study were linked with recent and/or repeated
exposure to music. This result supports previous studies that have highlighted the importance
of familiarity and recency in INMI episodes, and therefore validate the crucial role of musical
memory in these everyday experiences (Bailes, 2006, 2007; Beaman & Williams, 2010;
Liikkanen, 2008, 2009), as well as the influence of increasing, readily available musical
exposure in modern society (Sacks, 2007). Data from the present study also depict the role of
different musical media in INMI episodes and therefore draw attention to the potential for
different music listening habits to influence INMI experiences. Liikkanen (2008) reported that
increased music listening and practice was related to increased frequency of INMI. The present
study has built on this finding by documenting the multitude of different musical media that
are associated with the onset of an episode of INMI in everyday life, including listening to the
radio, attending music concerts, hearing ring tones, hearing other individuals humming or
singing, and watching video media such as TV adverts, films, dedicated music channels and
online music videos. Future studies that investigate the influence of music listening on INMI
episodes should aim to investigate the full range of possible experiences in everyday life,
including those that are not under an individual’s control.
Whilst the role of musical memory in INMI experiences seems now beyond doubt, the
breadth of other themes reported in present study suggests caution should be exercised when
estimating the potential importance of music familiarity in facilitating INMI occurrence.
Beaman & Williams (2010) suggested that only over-learned tunes are available to be “replayed”
as INMI, since in their survey “all [the tunes] were known to the participants” (p. 12). However,
the present evidence indicates that whilst “Repeated exposure” is certainly a dominant theme
within everyday INMI experiences, “over-learning” in the strict sense is not a prerequisite to an
INMI episode. Evidence to support this conclusion comes from participants in the present study
who describe INMI experiences that were triggered by limited exposure to a novel tune:
My earworm is quite a new song by Arial Park’s Haunted Graffiti called “Bright Lit Blue Sky.” I heard
it for the first time last week and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. (6 Music)
Furthermore, if only over learned tunes are available to become INMI, it might also be expected
that musicians would experience disproportionate INMI for their music, as they engage in many
hours of physical and mental practice, including musical imagery, before a performance (Chaffin
& Logan, 2006; Freymuth, 1999; Holmes, 2005; Wöllner & Williamon, 2007). Whilst we did
receive reports that were coded as “Learning” in both corpora, this theme did not feature prominently despite a high proportion of participants in the Survey corpus being semi-professional or
professional musicians. Indeed, congruent with the view that tunes need not be over learned to
occur as INMI, Liikkanen (2008) reported a significant number of INMI experiences that were
reported as “new music” by the participants. Therefore, while high levels of familiarity, or “overlearning,” might play an important role in some experiences of INMI, there are other potential
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Williamson et al.
factors that surround the circumstances of any one INMI episode that must be considered. Factors
not included in the present study that are due further consideration are the features of the tunes
themselves (Finkel, Jilka, Williamson, Stewart, & Müllensiefen, 2010) and the personality of the
listener (Fry, 2010).
One factor that was seen to play a key role in the circumstances surrounding INMI episodes
in the present study was Memory triggers. It was the second most prevalent generated theme
with regards to INMI context and consisted of the dominant themes of “Association,”
“Recollection” and “Anticipation.” A fundamental element of these themes, and all related subdominant themes, is that the individual did not report hearing the INMI tune in question but
rather encountered a stimulus that triggered retrieval of the tune. With “Association,” the
onset of a particular INMI episode related to the presence of a word or series of words, a person,
a situation or a sound, and in both “Recollection” and “Anticipation” the INMI episode related
to an incidence of “mental time travel” (Tulving, 2002), whereby an individual recalled either
a retrospective or prospective episode from their own life (autobiographical memory) that was
related to the INMI tune.
Evidence that underlies the importance of Memory triggers within INMI experiences comes
from Liikkanen’s (2009) cued recall technique, which uses word primes (incomplete song
lyrics) to trigger musical memories that later occur as INMI. However, this is a much more
direct example of priming than the reports received in the present study where isolated words
or phonologically similar letters were seen to spontaneously trigger INMI. There is also indirect
evidence from Liikkanen (2009) for the role of sound association in INMI episodes, as a small
number of participants reported experiencing INMI that was not directly related to the prime.
The present study builds on this finding by documenting the types of sound association that
can occur at the onset of INMI episodes in everyday life, including hearing music by the same
artist, environmental sounds and rhythms from activities such as walking or finger tapping.
Overall, the evidence from the present study indicates that spreading activation within nonmusical autobiographical and semantic memory can result in INMI episodes, extending
previous findings regarding the importance of musical memory to include non-musical
memory triggers.
The remaining dominant themes from both models were grouped into two categories; the
first was Affective states and the second was Low attention states (including “Dreams” and “Mind
wandering”). Again, there are hints at the existence of these INMI themes in previous studies:
Wammes and Barušs (2009) reported two related dimensions of INMI called “entertainment”
and “completeness,” where an INMI experience appeared to have a “purposive” (p. 51) function
for the individual. Items that loaded on these factors suggested that INMI can be entertaining
when an individual is not occupied in a task, but tends to cease when there is a sudden need for
concentration, and also that the content of the INMI episode can have relevance to the current
issues in someone’s life. The results of the present study support these findings and extend them
by showing that INMI is associated with periods of low attentional demand (defined as “Mind
wandering”) and low alertness (waking from a dream), and that characteristics of INMI can
reflect an individual’s mood and emotional state.
Theory development
It is important to place the results of the present grounded theory analysis of INMI within a
wider theoretical context. The presence and frequency of circumstance themes regarding
recent musical exposure and memory triggers invites interpretation within involuntary
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retrieval theory, which has not yet incorporated findings from INMI studies. Involuntary
memory retrieval was identified by Ebbinghaus (1885/1964) as one of the three basic modes
of remembering, along with voluntary and non-conscious (implicit) memory. Modern
psychology has tended to group involuntary memory retrieval alongside implicit memory
(Berntsen, 2010), but a small number of recent studies have described two independent forms
of involuntary retrieval; involuntary autobiographical memory (IAM) and involuntary
semantic memory (ISM). IAMs are defined as a sudden memory of a specific episode from the
past (Bernsten, 2009) whereas ISMs are an involuntary occurrence of brief items from
semantic knowledge (Kvavilashvili & Mandler, 2004), including autobiographical facts
(Conway, 1987).
The results of the present study of INMI can be interpreted within an IAM/ISM framework
in the following ways: “Recent” and “Repeated” exposure themes can be viewed as forms of
IAM, because the individual in this case retrieves an episode where they heard the music in the
past. The theme of “Anticipation” can be classified as part of prospective IAM, because a person
in this case spontaneously retrieves a memory regarding a future event in their life (Ellis &
Nimmo-Smith, 1993). Other Memory trigger themes can be broken down individually into
forms of IAM and ISM experiences depending on whether the individual spontaneously
retrieves an event from life that was associated with music as a result of an external cue (as was
often the case with “Situation associations”) or whether retrieval results from spreading
activation within semantic memory that was triggered by an external cue (as was often the case
with “Word associations”). The “Recollection” theme does not fit within a strict definition of
involuntary recall as the individual in this case is consciously attempting retrieval at the time,
but instead represents the case whereby memories of music that are associated with an
autobiographical episode are inadvertently triggered as a result of the voluntary recall attempt
(Mace, 2006).
The present findings also outline the states of body and mind that facilitate INMI retrieval
events, and in so doing reveal further similarities to both the IAM and ISM phenomena. Low or
diffuse attention states have previously been identified as an important cognitive facilitator of
IAM (Berntsen 1998; Berntsen & Jacobsen, 2008; Mace, 2006) and ISM (Kvavilashvili &
Mandler, 2004), a finding that is supported by the present study with relation to INMI. There is
additional evidence in the present data that emotion and mood congruence play a role in INMI,
a finding that implicates a degree of processing similarity or overlap between the mechanisms
underlying INMI and state-dependent memory retrieval (Buchanan, 2007; Eich, Kihlstrom,
Bower, Forgas, & Niedenthal, 2000). Mood (but not emotion) has been shown to influence
involuntary retrieval to a greater extent compared to voluntary retrieval (Berntsen & Hall,
2004), supporting a hypothesis that aspects of affective state have the potential to directly
influence aspects of INMI retrieval.
Taken together, the present study’s findings suggest that INMI episodes represent a valuable
phenomenon by which to further examine the nature of involuntary memory and to test a
number of emergent hypotheses; these include testing the theory that retrieval through IAM
and ISM results from independent cognitive and therefore potentially also underlying
neurological processes (Kvavilashvili & Mandler, 2004), determining the effects of concurrent
cognitive load on INMI retrieval patterns, thereby probing the role of working memory in the
experience (Marsh & Hicks, 1998), and examining whether tunes that come unbidden to mind
can be representative of an individual’s current affective state.
Overall, the predominance of external cues for INMI in the present study, in the form of
music, words, sounds and visual stimuli, is in line with Morton’s (1990) theory that involuntary
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Williamson et al.
memories are most frequently released by specific, perceptual cues, as against internal thoughts
that are independent of the external world (Singer, 1993). However, the findings do not rule
out the possibility that INMI can also occur in the absence of a conscious cue. Many of the
original reports gathered by BBC 6 Music and the online survey were not included in the corpora
of the present study for the reason that the participant, by either a lack of knowledge or will,
failed to report the circumstances of their INMI episode. One point to consider in this regard is
that the lack of an identifiable cue for memory retrieval is reportedly more common in ISM
than IAM (Kvavilashvili & Mandler, 2004). A potential hypothesis for future study would be
that the majority of INMI that lacks notable circumstances or an identifiable “trigger” results
from subconscious, spreading activation within semantic memory.
Caveats
The present grounded theory analysis has highlighted a number of themes that relate to the
importance of musical engagement in INMI experiences, such as attendance at live music
concerts, searching for music-related video media and the everyday use of private music,
including MP3 devices. However, the self-selected data collection method could foreseeably bias
the sample towards individuals with a particular interest in music. This is evidenced by the fact
that the 6 Music corpus, by definition, includes listeners to a radio station, and over half the
participants in the Survey corpus classified themselves at the level of amateur musicians or
above. Therefore, the present study serves to illustrate the extent to which different music media
engagement can be associated with INMI episodes, but presents no conclusions about the
relative importance of different types of music engagement on INMI experiences. The findings
of the present study suggest that the relationship between regular, everyday musical engagement
and INMI is an important issue for future research to explore more directly (Liikkanen, 2008).
A final stipulation with the present data goes to drawing conclusions about the frequency of
the identified INMI themes. It may appear that a theme such as “Learning,” referring to musical
practice, is a minimal facilitator circumstance for INMI because of its low frequency count in
the present data. This finding would appear to be at odds with the findings of Bailes (2007) and
Liikkanen (2008), which both indicate that music practice is a common trigger for INMI
episodes in trained musicians. However, the present study reports the frequency of single
sample INMI reports provided by a large cohort of people, the majority of whom had little or no
musical training; so the low number reports of some of the themes could simply reflect
behaviours that are less frequent in everyday life within the general population, such as
intensive music practice, as opposed to any measure of the relative facilitation effect for different
circumstances surrounding INMI.
Conclusions
While musical imagery is a skill that many (especially musicians) can utilize to their advantage,
INMI is an involuntary, spontaneous, cognitive intrusion that, while not necessarily unpleasant
or worrying, can prove hard to control (Beaman & Williams, 2010). The present study has
classified the breadth of circumstances associated with the onset of an INMI episode in everyday
life and provided insights into the origins of this pervasive phenomenon, as well as an illustration
of how these different contexts might interact. The conclusion to our grounded theory analysis
is that the omnipresent existence of music in everyday life, both self-selected and uncontrolled,
plays a key role in experiences of INMI (Beaman & Williams, 2010; Sacks, 2007) by facilitating
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the occurrence of musical IAM and ISM; however, the experience of INMI at any given time
also depends on a complex interaction between an individual’s state of mind, as defined by their
level of attention and affective state, as well as spreading activation processes within both
autobiographical and semantic memory.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a British Academy Research Grant to V.J.W and D.M (SG090316). We
thank Mandi Goldberg for help in managing data and BBC 6 Music, in particular Paul Rodgers, Zoe
Fletcher, Lisa Kenlock and Shaun Keaveny, for assistance with project promotion and data collection.
Thanks also to the numerous radio stations and online forums who promoted the project, and to two
anonymous reviewers and Lassi Liikkanen for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.
Notes
1. 6 Music breakfast show weekly audience is 421,000 (BBC marketing, communications and audience
figures obtained April 2011 by email).
2. For information see the Radio Joint Audience Research website (RAJAR, n.d.).
3. For information see National Readership Survey (n.d.). http://www.nrs.co.uk/lifestyle.html.
4. Dominant theme headings are shown in bold in the following section.
5. Category headings are shown in italics in the following section.
6. It was also not possible to analyse themes that were automatically coded with another (such as Affective
state or Association), as a participant could in these circumstances provide more than one data point.
7. Divisions were made so that no category had more than 100 or fewer than 15 members.
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Author biographies
Victoria Williamson is currently a Lecturer in Music Psychology and co-director of the MSc in
Music, Mind and Brain at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK). She holds a first class BSc
degree in Psychology (York, UK) and an MA in the Psychology of Music (Sheffield, UK). In
2005 she was awarded a University of York PhD Studentship to study musical memory with
Professors Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch. In 2008 she won an ESRC Fellowship to study
memory in congenital amusia. Her current research interests include the behavioural
manifestations of congenital amusia, the use of music to aid memory and language learning,
and involuntary musical imagery. She is webmaster of the popular educational site http://
musicpsychology.co.uk.
Sagar Jilka is currently a PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK). He is also a
visiting researcher at Imperial College London and holds an honorary clinical position with
Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust where he carries out the neuropsychological testing on
patients with traumatic brain injury. He holds a BSc in Psychology and Music Technology
(Keele, UK) and an MRes in Brain Imaging and Cognitive Neuroscience (Birmingham).
Alongside his MRes, he worked as a research assistant at Goldsmiths on the Earworms project.
His current research interests include traumatic brain injury and executive function, as well as
experiences of involuntary musical imagery.
Sebastian Finkel is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural
Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and member of the International Max
Planck Research School for Neural and Behavioural Sciences (Tübingen). He holds a BA degree
in Music and Physics (Oldenburg, Germany) and a first class MSc degree in Music, Mind and
Brain (Goldsmiths, UK). His current work focuses on the neural underpinnings of vocal control
in amateur and professional opera singers, while his further research interests encompass
memory phenomenon within involuntary musical imagery and possible shared/distinct neural
networks for music and language.
Josh Fry recently completed an MSc in Music, Mind and Brain at Goldsmiths, University of
London (UK), and also holds a BSc in Psychology (Lancaster, UK). His research interests include
the effects of group music performance on social bonding, alternative uses for music in
education, the impact of music therapy in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) populations and
variation in experiences of involuntary musical imagery. He currently works at an independent
school for children with ASD.
Daniel Müllensiefen studied systematic and historic musicology at the Universities of Hamburg
and Salamanca. In 2004 he completed a PhD on musical memory. He has been a postdoctoral
student in the Computing department and is now a Lecturer in the Psychology department at
Goldsmiths, University of London (UK). He is the course co-director of Goldsmiths’ MSc
programme, Music, Mind, and Brain.
282
Lauren Stewart is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK),
where she founded the MSc in Music, Mind and Brain. She studied Physiological Sciences
followed by an MSc in Neuroscience (Oxford, UK) before undertaking a PhD at the Institute of
Cognitive Neuroscience (UCL, UK) and postdoctoral research (Newcastle, UK and Harvard,
USA). She took up her current lectureship at Goldsmiths in 2006 and in 2008 was awarded the
Experimental Psychology Society Prize for distinguished research at an early career stage. Her
research has investigated longitudinal changes in brain function resulting from music training,
and the development of automatic sensorimotor mappings in trained musicians. Her current
ESRC funded research uses genetic, cognitive and neuroimaging approaches to characterize the
disorder of congenital amusia.
Appendix 1: Music short-form, available at http://www.bbc.
co.uk/6music/shows/shaun-keaveny/form/earworms/
What is your earworm?
Which bit of the song is repeating for you?
What were you doing / where were you when you noticed this earworm?
Do you have any idea what triggered this earworm?
Appendix 2: Relevant demographics questions from the online survey –
available at http://earwormery.com
We are part of the Music Mind and Brain (MMB) group from Goldsmiths, University of London
and we are interested in finding out about the different types of music that people have in their
heads. We want to ask you a few simple questions about your personality and musical background, and then we would like to know about the nature of the music in your head!
Your participation is much appreciated! This survey should only take about 15 minutes; the
green bar at the top of the page will indicate your progress. If you have any questions, please do
not hesitate to email us: [email protected]!
Please check the box below to confirm that you have read and understood the above
information about this online questionnaire and have had the opportunity to ask
questions (by emailing [email protected]).
By checking this you indicate that you understand that participation is voluntary and that you
are free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason, without your legal rights being
affected.
[ ] I agree to take part in the above study.
If you are under 18, or require a third party to give consent for you, please check the
box below to indicate that you have been given consent to take part from your
parent/guardian.
[ ] I have consent to take part.
283
Williamson et al.
Gender
1) Male
2) Female
Age:
What is the highest level of education that you have completed?
1) None
2) Completed primary school (left school before age 16)
3) Completed secondary school (left school at age 16)
4) Completed post-secondary school education (A-Levels or equivalent, apprenticeship, TAFE
courses etc.)
5) Completed undergraduate degree at university
6) Completed postgraduate degree at university
How would you categorise yourself ?
1) Non-musician
2) Music-loving non-musician
3) Amateur musician
4) Serious amateur musician
5) Semi-professional musician
6) Professional musician
Do you or have you ever played a musical instrument (includes voice)?
If No, you may leave the rest of this section BLANK and move on to ‘Other musical activities’.
1) Yes
2) No
At what age did you begin sustained musical activity (i.e. regular lessons or
practice)?
years
How many years did you engage in sustained musical activity?
years
Which category comes nearest to the amount of time you spent practising an instrument (or voice) during that period of sustained musical activity?
1) About an hour per month
2) About an hour per week
3) About 15 minutes per day
4) About an hour per day
5) More than 2 hours per day
284
Which category comes nearest to the amount of time you currently spend practising
an instrument (or voice)?
1) I rarely or never practise singing or playing an instrument anymore
2) About an hour per month
3) About an hour per week
4) About 15 minutes per day
5) About an hour per day
6) More than 2 hours per day
Have you ever participated in a musical group (e.g. band, choir, or orchestra)?
1) Yes
2) No
Have you ever participated in musical competitions or examinations?
1) Yes
2) No
Appendix 3: The “Recent Earworm” section from the online survey
Now, we would like you to please tell us a bit about a very recent earworm you have
experienced.
Write the name of the artist and the song title, if possible.
Please indicate the part of the song you experienced as an earworm by writing down
the first and last few words.
If you don’t know or remember the lyrics, or the song does not contain lyrics, try to narrow
down the part you heard for us by using words like “intro”, “verse”, “the 2 lines after the drum
solo” or “chorus”.
Where were you and what were you doing the last time you noticed this earworm?
(e.g. driving in the car, working in the office, walking to a meeting, eating a meal with a friend). Feel
free to give as much detail as you can. You can tell us about more than one occasion if you like.
Do you have any idea what might have triggered the earworm?
(e.g. ‘I heard it on the radio’, ‘Someone said a word from the song lyric which set it off ’, ‘I have
been learning to play this song on the guitar’). Feel free to give as much detail as you can. You
can tell us about more than one occasion if you like.

How do `earworms` start? - Department of Computing

Transcription

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