"Baaaaabyyyyy Shark, doo doo doo doo de da doo doo…" ARGH!
If you’d just got that one out of your head, we apologise. The annoying, nonsensical, but oh so catchy tune that has taken over playgrounds and offices everywhere has also invaded TMB and the admin team have been humming it all week. So it got us thinking, why do certain songs become ear worms and why is it so hard to get rid of them?
According to research, earworms are more likely to be songs that you hear a lot, with repetitive notes and distinctive rhythms and pitch patterns. The song also has to be quite simple in order for the brain to want to spontaneously recall it. So far, so Baby Shark.
In 2012, a study published in the Psychology of Music Journal found that 90% of participants had a song stuck in their head at least once a week and the more musical the person, the more susceptible they were. That’s backed up by the cases of two poor individuals – a pianist and a composer – detailed in the 2006 Journal of Consciousness Studies, who reported suffering from earworms ALL THE TIME. The pianist said: “I find almost nothing pleasurable about [it], rather it is quite a distraction…the kind of thing I wish I could turn off.” Tim says he suffers with this and claims that's the reason he forgets birthdays, misses entire conversations and switches into his own world at any given moment... (hmmmm).
Which leads us on to the killer question – just how do you get rid of that repetitive track looping through your brain? A study in 2010 asked participants to record their earworm episodes in a diary and discovered that the more people tried to get rid of them, the longer the song stayed stuck in their head. The process of thinking about a song in an attempt to get rid of it actualy keeps the tune fresh in the brain. Which reminds us: "Muuuuuummmmyyyy Shark, doo doo doo doo de da doo doo…."
