It’s happening again, isn’t it?

You have that one song stuck in your head. You know, either a treasured classic or that one song that the radio and/or general cacophony of everyday life sees fit to play ad infinitum. I apologise dear reader as I’ve played a dastardly psychological trick on you and ask that you forgive my exercising of that bit of the brain that is not so easily quieted. But let me tell you that the average human being spends forty percent of his or her days falling into constant, spontaneous cognitions. As many of you are undoubtedly attesting by the clear sign of how you are tapping your foot along to that one song at this very moment. The phenomenon is commonly called an ‘ear worm’, yet goes by the technical name of involuntary musical imagery (INMI). Other little tricks have been optimised to really take advantage of the ear worm phenomenon. Various studies in neuroscience have noted the impact of repetition on memory and recall; music definitely benefits from such a nature. Because of this, that one song can become very powerful deep down on the neurological level.

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