quadro2000

I found this to be a pretty interesting article, apologies if it's been posted here. What songs get stuck in YOUR head? (Of course, by posting them here, you doom the rest of us, but so be it!)

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August 12, 2003
When the Brain Grabs a Tune and Won't Let Go
By JESSICA KOVLER


There's nothing nicer than a tune playing in your head — until you can't turn it off.

The phenomenon has spanned the ages. In 1882, Mark Twain wrote in a short story of an annoying "jingling rhyme" that became indelibly lodged in the author's mind until he passed the curse along to another hapless victim. This summer, a community board in Brooklyn has called for a limit on the playing of the "Mr. Softee" jingle by ice-cream trucks — a jingle that can be unbearably memorable for those subjected to it for extended periods.

Research has helped define, but not explain, the experience.

A recent study by the University of Cincinnati looked at the affliction, which the author, James Kellaris, calls earworms from the German word ohrwurm. The ear part is obvious, but the worm part is not incidental. Dr. Kellaris, a consumer psychologist, says it conveys the parasitic nature of the unending tunes, which lodge too deep in the mental continuum to be easily ousted.

He found that some 98 percent of listeners will at one time or another be bothered by a tune that will not leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle ("Gimme a break"), "Who Let the Dogs Out," Queen's "We Will Rock You," the theme to "Mission: Impossible," "Y.M.C.A.," "Whoomp, There It Is," "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "It's A Small World After All."

The study also showed that musicians and those with compulsive tendencies are the most afflicted.

The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili's jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song "Who Let the Dogs Out." But Dr. Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes.

There can be a positive side for some. The singer-songwriter Neil Diamond says those repetitive notes that will not go away have spawned some of his biggest hits.

"If I wasn't in the business of songwriting, I'd probably be seeing a doctor," Mr. Diamond said. "I've tried everything from cold showers to listening to other people's music, but nothing helps."

Most of his songs spring from a melodic swatch of six notes repeating in his mind. "I'll be driving or watching TV or having lunch, and it just invades," he said. "It's a horrible obsession, but it seems to have paid off."

Graham Nash said the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song "Black Notes" had a similar origin. "I was at a concert with Crosby at Carnegie Hall in 1970," Mr. Nash said. "He ran offstage to get Young and just left me hanging there. Well, I had nothing to do, so I started playing a few notes that had been stuck in my head for a few days. The notes soon became a verse and then an entire song, right there."

The greater susceptibility of musicians may simply reflect how much more music they listen to. But other research has shown that musical training leads to changes in brain function and structure in regions like the rostromedial prefrontal cortex, an area located behind the forehead that is involved in the perception of melody. Some kind of self-perpetuating stimulus of these circuits may explain why familiar tunes like "Y.M.C.A." can literally become branded in the brain. Neural circuits for music perception also appear in the temporal lobes, which is involved in more basic sound processing.

Petr Janata, a research assistant professor at Dartmouth who studies music and the brain, said the effect can be heightened when sound is linked to motion. "The brain and the body get involved. When we put specific dance to the music — like with the `Macarena' or `The Hustle' — the whole body remembers the tune."

Repetition often helps to create a sticky song, as do those whose melodies repeat or contain an element of surprise. "Our jingle often ran on all three networks tons of times a day," said John Clarke, chief advertising officer of Dr. Pepper/7Up. "And those phrases were catchy. `I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?' "

That jingle also ran longer than a jingle of 2003 would, 60 seconds compared with this year's 15. It was a simple tune, the perfect ingredients for an earworm, Dr. Kellaris said.

Singing the song aloud can sometimes erase it.

"It's a familiar pattern of itching and scratching," Dr. Kellaris says. "The only way to `scratch' a cognitive itch is to rehearse the start involuntarily, as the brain detects an incongruity or something `exceptional' in the musical stimulus."

Other advice?

"Don't worry — be happy," Dr. Kellaris says. "It's a small world after all and one day we will lift up our chin, and grin, and say, whoomp — there it is."