Involuntary Musical Imagery

Involuntary Musical Imagery

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

A tune that replays in the mind without being called up, commonly known as an earworm.

What it is

In a survey of about 3,000 people, tunes reported as returning uninvited had done better in the charts and shared melodic traits with each other. It is drawn from work by Halpern and Bartlett (2011).

In effect

In the article on why jingles get stuck in your head, it names the experience of a tune replaying uninvited.

What it does not say

It describes a common experience reported by many people in surveys. The traits found are tendencies in reported tunes, not a recipe that guarantees any tune will stick.

Sources

  1. Halpern, A. R., & Bartlett, J. C. (2011). The persistence of musical memories: A descriptive study of earworms. Music Perception, 28(4), 425-432.
  2. Jakubowski, K., Farrugia, N., Halpern, A. R., Sankarpandi, S. K., & Stewart, L. (2015). The speed of our mental soundtracks: Tracking the tempo of involuntary musical imagery in everyday life. Memory & Cognition, 43(8), 1229-1242.
  3. Liikkanen, L. A., & Jakubowski, K. (2020). Involuntary musical imagery as a component of ordinary music cognition: A review of empirical evidence. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27(6), 1195-1217.
  4. Liptak, T. A., Omigie, D., & Floridou, G. A. (2022). The idiosyncrasy of involuntary musical imagery repetition (IMIR) experiences. Music Perception, 39(3), 320-338.