Earworms from three Earworms from three

anglesangles

Dr. Victoria Williamson & Dr Daniel Müllensiefen

A British Academy funded project run by the Music, Mind and Brain Group at Goldsmiths in collaboration with BBC 6Music

� Earwormery.com

� 6Music site (Short reports)

Points of contact for our studies

What is left unansweredWhat is left unanswered……

1. What triggers earworms? Do they have a purpose?

2. Are some people/personalities more vulnerable than others?

3. What is it that makes a tune sticky?

Project 1: Everyday triggersProject 1: Everyday triggers

What triggers earworms?

� Method: Qualitative analysis (grounded

theory) of earworm episodes

� Tools: Surveys and

interviews

� Result: Identification of high- risk situations

� Do they have a use?

Results Results (Williamson et al., 2012)(Williamson et al., 2012)

� 6 Music corpus: 333 reports = 942 codes

� Survey (.com) corpus: 271 reports = 657 codes

� Two models created showing everyday

earworm triggers and their relations

� Emphasise importance of musical exposure but also memory function, and cognitive and

affective state.

Some examples of memorable Some examples of memorable

reports...reports...

� Stress - 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” (6Music Text).

� Person Association- 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” (6Music Emails)

� Word Association - “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 data).

� Recent - “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!!” (6Music Emails)

Musical mediaMusical media

� 1. Live Music (e.g. concerts or gigs)

� 1. Video Media (e.g. TV, film, internet site)

� 3. Radio

� 4. Private Music (e.g. in the home or the car)

� 5. Contagion (e.g. another individual singing or

humming)

� 6. Learning (e.g. practising for performance or a lesson)

� 7. Public Music (e.g. restaurant, shop or gym)

� 8. Ringtones

DiscussionDiscussion

� Musical exposure – ubiquity (Sacks, 2007; Beaman & Williams, 2010; Liikkanen, 2012)

� But, non musical triggers in memory

� Mental time travel (Tulving, 2002), that is involuntary (IAM; Bernsten, 2009)

� Heightened emotional states : Levels of encoding = ‘resurfacing’ potential?

� Congruence? States of Mind?

Project 2: Individual differencesProject 2: Individual differences

Are some people more vulnerable than others?

� Method: Statistical analysis of personality inventory and musical behaviour questionnaire

� Tools: Questionnaire on thinking patterns (OCI-R), musical behaviours (MuBQ) and INMI (earwormery.com)

� Question: Link between personality types, musical behaviours and earworm (INMI) experiences

MMüüllensiefen llensiefen et al. (et al. (in reviewin review))

� Why are we interested in OC trait?

� “people with obsessive compulsive disorder are more likely to report being troubled by earworms – in some cases mediations for OCD can minimise the effects” (Levitin: p.151)

� Let’s find out …

HypothesesHypotheses

� People who are more ‘musical’ will experience more frequent earworms (INMI) that is longer and more troubling (Beaman &

Williams, 2011 Liikkanen, 2012)

� Individuals who measure highly on sub-clinical OC will experience more INMI that is more disturbing (Garcia-Soriano, Belloch, Morillo, &

Clark, 2011)

MethodMethod

� 1536 participants (58.1% women).

� M Age = 34.2, SD = 12.6, range: 12-75

� Exploratory analysis (n=512):

◦ Factor analysis of musical behaviour and INMI questionnaire

� Confirmatory analysis (n=1024):

◦ Structural equation modelling to test hypotheses between OC, musical behaviour, and INMI.

Modelling 1) Factor structuresModelling 1) Factor structures

� INMI:

◦ Factor INMI Disturbance

◦ Individual variables: INMI Frequency, INMI Length, INMI

Unpleasantness

� Musical Behaviour Factors:

◦ Musical Practice

◦ Musical Professionalism

◦ Listening Engagement

◦ Singing

Modelling 2) Testing HypothesesModelling 2) Testing Hypotheses

� Structural Equation Modelling:

◦ Factor structure confirmed

◦ Only some hypotheses confirmed

◦ Good fit of final model:

� χ2(85) = 397.79, p < .0001

� adjusted goodness-of-fit = 0.929

� RMSEA index = 0.06

ResultsResults

� Only Singing as musical behaviour is linked (positively) to INMI◦ But: Singing makes INMI more pleasant

� OC traits are linked to INMI Frequency and INMI Disturbance

� Mediated evaluative response between OC and INMI Length:◦ High OC trait => INMI more disturbing => longer INMIs

◦ paradoxical relationship found in clinical OCD: high efforts to suppress intrusive thoughts make these thoughts longer (‘rebound effect’) and more frequent (‘immediate enhancement effect’) (Wegner et al., 1987)

� Should we be medicating earworms with OCD drugs?...

� Should we prescribe Singing to OCD patients? …

Posters on individual differences

� G. A. Floridou, V. J. Williamson, D.

Müllensiefen: Contracting Earworms:

The Roles of Personality and Musicality

(Friday 3.30pm)

� M. Wammes, D. Müllensiefen, V.J

Williamson: Schizotypal Influences on

Musical Imagery Experience

Project 3: Stickiness of tunesProject 3: Stickiness of tunes

What is it that makes a tune sticky?

� Method: Computational analysis of tunes from frequently reported earworms

� Tools: FANTASTIC software package

� Result: Formula predicting stickiness

� Masters Project: Sebastian Finkel (Friday 3.30pm poster session)

p (chart_entry =1) =1

1+ e−(772.4 + 141.2 ⋅ pitch_range - 4731.3 ⋅pitch_entropy)

i.abs.std =∆pi − ∆p( )

2

i∑

N −1= 2.83

Step 1: Gathering earwormsStep 1: Gathering earworms

• ~2000 participants (.com survey)

• Recent earworm and a Frequent earworm– Artist, song title, exact part

• 1960 different earworm tunes

• Top earworm list: 107 songs (5.5%)– identifiable and named at least 3 times

MethodMethod

1. Control for popularity and recency and

find ‘sticky tunes’:=> 29 tunes with a positive residual after poisson regression (using popularity data as

predictors)

2. Find 29 tunes most similar to 29 INMI

tunes (match by genre, artist and chart

success etc.)

3. Use melodic features (Müllensiefen, 2009) of

tunes to predict INMI vs non-INMI tunes

(logistic regression)

DataData

Most frequent earworm tunes:

Similarly successful but never mentioned as earworms:

Earworm classification modelEarworm classification model

p (earworm =1) =1

1+ e−(1.079+ 0.064 ⋅ d.median -0.723 ⋅ i.leaps)

= Longer durations and smaller intervals make tunes sticky (maybe because they are easier to sing?)

BUT results only preliminary, because:• Melody only one aspect of INMI

• Small sample

• No combinations / interactions of features

• Different types of earworms => different structural models?

FINAL conclusionsFINAL conclusions� Musical exposure important (Sacks, 2007) that is recent and repeated

(Beaman and Williams, 2010); but so is the activity of non-musical, involuntary memories

� State of mental arousal (wakefulness, excitement and stress) and‘mind wandering’ – a possible function? (Leverhulme Grant)

� Individual differences in singing only predicts some features of INMI plus ease of singing may predict stickiness: activity of brain areas?

� Earworms may have structural melodic triggers – why do our minds react to patterns in this way?

� Wider implications for other spontaneous cognitions (including creativity and rumination), memory processes, music perception and encoding, personality research...

icmpc12earworms.comicmpc12earworms.com

THANK YOU THANK YOU

IF INTERESTED: MUSICPSYCHOLOGY.CO.UKIF INTERESTED: MUSICPSYCHOLOGY.CO.UK

QUESTIONS??QUESTIONS??

This project was supported by:

Why do we care?Why do we care?

� Spontaneous Involuntary Cognition – ‘mind popping’(Christoff et al. 2004; Klinger & Cox, 1987)

� Up to 40% of thoughts (McVay et al. 2009)

� One of many; but accessible, classifiable & regular

� Window into our unconscious, memory processes, mental control abilities...

� Ok we are interested! So what do we know?

MuBQMuBQ scale (Now scale (Now ‘‘Gold MSIGold MSI’’))

� The MuBQ comprises 16 items relating to musical

behaviour and experience

� Amount of attentive and background listening, the number of concerts attended, self-assessed singing ability, frequency of sing-along behaviour, importance of music in the participant’s life, self-defined levels of musical competence, the type and extent of musical training, other skilled musical activities, and the possession of absolute pitch.

� Maximum-likelihood principal factor analyses

� Final four-factor solution = 52.6%: Musical Practice, Music Professionalism, Listening

Engagement and Singing.

INMI scaleINMI scale

� The INMI-Q comprises 7 items

� The length and frequency of INMI episodes, their subjective unpleasantness, and the frequency with which an individual triesto get actively rid of his/her INMI, the effort necessary for controlling them, their interference with other tasks, and the degree to which an individual feels their INMI experiences are worrisome

� Maximum-likelihood principal factor analyses

� Final four-factor solution = 48%:

INMI Frequency, Length, Unpleasantness,

Disturbance (intrusion and concern)