A piece of music from a commercial, a song from TikTok, a new summer hit, the chorus of a song – all these melodies can get stuck in the head and sometimes there is no way to get rid of them.
Publika.az reports that in English such obsessive, sticky, crazy motives are called “earworms”, they crawl inside the head and cannot be removed from there.
Scientists call “earworms” “involuntary musical visions” because they creep into our heads without warning. It’s usually a very simple, repetitive tune that’s easy to hum.
The phenomenon of “broken record” is very common among people.
So, according to a survey of American students in 2020, almost 100% of them suffered from one or another “earworm”.
According to Claire Arthur, an associate professor of music at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), getting melodies stuck in the brain is a universal phenomenon that occurs at all ages and in all cultures. The difference between an earworm and any other memory that occurs spontaneously in our brain is that it “stands on repeat”, repeating itself endlessly or simply repeating itself several times.
Scientists don’t know for sure yet, but they suspect it may be due to the peculiarities of our brains. Research published in the journal “Psychology of Music” shows that “earworms” most often occur in a situation that is new to us, as well as in a state of rest, fatigue and boredom.
According to Emery Schubert, a professor at the University of South Wales (Australia), our brain is made up of highly complex neural networks that store information, and when our mind wanders around, it involuntarily clings to some new motif based on repetition. In fact, songwriters deliberately weave repetitive refrains into music to increase the chance of the melody sticking.
At its core, involuntary musical images are a form of thought, that is, some thought is an unproductive fixation, a “mental chewing of gum.” Research shows that people with heightened anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder are particularly susceptible to earworms.
If a blocked bladder does not let go of you for months and prevents you from living normally, you should consult a doctor.
You can get rid of earworms by listening to that music over and over again, thinking or doing things that distract you, updating your personal playlist, changing the lyrics of the music.
(medicina.az)
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