It happens to me all the time. Just the other day, I was sitting in the library, trying to focus on an assignment, when suddenly Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” popped into my head. I had watched her Coachella performance earlier that day, and before I knew it, that catchy chorus was playing on repeat in my mind. This experience of a song getting stuck in our heads is known as an earworm, and I’m not alone. Over 90% of people report dealing with earworms at some point (Liikkanen, 2011). Researchers actually have a term for it: INMI, which stands for Involuntary Musical Imagery, a universal phenomenon of having music looping in one’s head. 

The neurobiology of earworms

While it’s still unclear exactly why earworms occur, some intriguing clues have emerged from research. Dartmouth graduate student David Kraemer and his team used non-invasive imaging (fMRI) to identify the brain regions involved in what they call “unprompted auditory imagery.” Kraemer describes this as any verbal cue, from a phone number to a song. In their study, participants listened to portions of well-known catchy songs while their brain activity was monitored. Remarkably, the same auditory cortex that processed the music when it was actually played also reactivated when participants were asked to imagine the next part of the song. This suggests that earworms may be triggered by the brain’s memory system within the auditory cortex.

A critical component of this memory system is the phonological loop, a short-term memory system in the auditory cortex that holds auditory information temporarily. This part of the brain is part of the larger working memory system and plays a key role in verbal short-term memory. Typically, most information is either forgotten or transferred to long-term memory, but songs seem to linger in short-term memory much longer. 

In support of this, Killingly and colleagues conducted an experiment to investigate how earworms may be related to phonological memory. In their study, participants were asked to perform a serial recall task, where they had to recall a series of digits while listening to either catchy or non-catchy music. The results revealed a significant difference in performance, with participants recalling fewer digits when listening to catchy music, especially during and following the presentation of the song, as shown in Figure 1 (Killingly et al.2021). This suggests that the song was occupying their working memory, preventing them from focusing fully on the task at hand. The performance was significantly worse when participants were exposed to truncated (unfinished) catchy songs, as evident in Figure 2 (Killingly et al.2021). This indicates that the phonological loop was continuously engaged in trying to “complete” the song in their minds.

Figure 1

Figure 2

In summary, the results from Killingly’s experiment suggest that earworms are not just an annoyance, but a direct consequence of our brain’s phonological working memory system. The study’s findings support the idea that catchy songs engage the phonological loop, causing them to replay in our minds long after the music has stopped.

How to get rid of an earworm? 

If you’re tired of hearing the same song on repeat, what can you do to stop it? Distracting yourself with a task that requires your working memory can help interrupt the loop. For example, solving puzzles or engaging in a different mental activity can force your brain to shift its focus away from the song. Alternatively, listening to the full version of the song might help “complete” the musical experience in your mind and stop the loop.

References 

Arthur, C. “Why Do Songs Get “Stuck in Our Heads”? Towards a Theory for Explaining Earworms.” Music & Science 6 (2023): 1-15.

Killingly, C. et al “Singing in the Brain: Investigating the Cognitive Basis of Earworms.” Music Perception 38, no. 5 (2021): 456-72.

Kraemer, D., Macrae, C., Green, A. et al. Sound of silence activates auditory cortex. Nature 434, 158 (2005).

Liikkanen, L. A. (2011). Musical activities predispose to involuntary musical imagery. Psychology of Music, 40(2), 236–256.