The online diary of a dreamer creating Contemporary Romantic Fiction - because Every Woman needs Love and Laughter in her Life.

Monday 18 February 2008

EarWorms


Jenny Cruise has been blogging about the curious nature of EARWORMS.
No, not crawly multilegged beasties - EARWORMS are the annoying songs that you cannot get out of replay in your brain.

It turns out the reason you can’t dump them is that your brain pays more attention to unfinished things. According to Bill Thompson at the University of Toronto, the key culprits are simplicity, repetition and circularity, and the worst of these is circularity; a song with a circular structure (verse/chorus/verse/chorus) will just cycle in your head endlessly eating its own tail while your brain tries to find the place that it ends.

And evidently almost all brains do it.

It is well possible that the reason that some babies cry and cannot sleep all night long is that the earworms are repeating bits and pieces of the latest Christina Aguilera song in their heads.

Which songs are the worst offenders? YMCA? The theme tune from your fav TV ad? Movie? Something you just caught a snatch from the radio?
Ah - that is up to you!
What's playing on my YouTube right now? 'In the Deep'- North and South. [Perfect match of lyrics and video.] http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJLgyonhNA

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Pop goes my Heart from the film music and lyrics becuase dd keeps playing the wretched thing!!!

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

I've never heard of Ear Worms before, good to put a name to this annoying occurrence though. At the moment mine is Amore by Andrea Bocelli.

Ray-Anne said...

LOL ladies - love that selection. For weeks mine has been 'Let's get the party started' by Pink. Heard it on the radio - it was my mantra on a walking holiday in Corsica once when it was a slog.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rTlWqW6fSYc

Hope you both have a great day
:-)