What is it about?
Earworms are repeating experiences of tunes or songs. Since our initial publication in 2010 (Beaman & Williams DOI:10.1348/000712609X479636) earworms have become a popular subject for research. However, there has been confusion about how earworms are related to other forms of musical thinking or musical memories. This paper attempts to clarify the distinctions.
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Why is it important?
This paper explains why it is important to distinguish different types of involuntary musical imagery (INMI). Earworms are only one type of INMI. Other types of INMI include: musical obsessions, musical hallucinations and musical dreams.
Perspectives
I wrote this paper as the result of a challenge from another author in the field, who suggested that people were becoming confused about what an earworm was. In my opinion a failure to understand differences in experience risks losing essential elements of musical imagery and its place in the world of intrusive thoughts/cognitions.
Dr Timothy Ivor Williams
University of Reading
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The classification of involuntary musical imagery: The case for earworms., Psychomusicology Music Mind and Brain, January 2015, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pmu0000082.
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