Earworms: Split from 'Broken Shapes Floating Through My Head'

[bvanevery]

I can. Ever had a song stuck in your head? Replace auditory info with visual and you have this loop.

Songs in my head don't loop. This sounds like another example of having one's perceptions conditioned by a lot of external media.

Visualization could easily work the same. Generating new images is more difficult for the brain than remembering old ones.

Tellin' ya, they don't in mine. You have to deal with the anecdotal data as it comes. I'm not a looper. Maybe you are, and the other guy is.

Of course, this is just a guess. I do think a sociological explanation with youtube is a bit of a stretch, especially given we've had looping screen savers for far longer.

Well if someone stared at looping screen savers a lot, that would suffice. But I didn't.

 

[Hadoblado]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Only one in 50 people don't experience earworm. Consider yourself lucky.

 

[Haim]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

I can. Ever had a song stuck in your head? Replace auditory info with visual and you have this loop.

Why, when you have a song stuck in your head, do you loop one part (such as the chorus), instead of completing the whole song and then move on (like I desperately wish would happen)? Well, you're looping the song, but you're not necessarily making the decision to do so. If you're not deciding to loop the song, then what is? Level of synaptic connectivity. Since popular songs are sort of designed so that the pieces easily lead back into themselves, at a certain point through the song, the synapses are more prompted by themselves (availability bias) than they are by the rest of the song, and the collapse starting over instead of proceeding to completion.

Visualization could easily work the same. Generating new images is more difficult for the brain than remembering old ones. So when you visualise a cube and rotate it 270 degrees, your brain has the necessary image for 360 very available to it, and also sort of wants to use the shortcut for efficiency purposes. This might explain why is feels broken, because the last part of the process is being hijacked by another similar process.

Of course, this is just a guess. I do think a sociological explanation with youtube is a bit of a stretch, especially given we've had looping screen savers for far longer.

No,it because we(or at least I) can not imagine in real time,it's like a low framerate.
I don't think the brain works as a picture catalog,more that the brain take cube image as input then produce the next (rotated) "output" with it,that takes time for the brain to do.I think that dream shifting to other one happen when your brain fail to produce a new image based on the current one.

 

[QuickTwist]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Speaking of dreams, I find it pretty common for me to wake up before the conclusion to my dream is over. I then, as I am still waking up to reality, completely forget my dream I was having. But that's not here nor there. The point is I get that the OPs brain can't quite complete the loop and I think its actually pretty common. There must be something about our psyche that resists a completion of things. Maybe it has to deal with the fact that we know we are going to die someday or something like that. *shrug*

Here I just found this: http://changingminds.org/principles/completion.htm

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Only one in 50 people don't experience earworm. Consider yourself lucky.

I was going to ask you for a cite on that stat, but I just web searched. I found wikipedia claiming:

According to research by James Kellaris, 98% of individuals experience earworms. Women and men experience the phenomenon equally often, but earworms tend to last longer for women and irritate them more.[15] Kellaris produced statistics suggesting that songs with lyrics may account for 73.7% of earworms, whereas instrumental music may cause only 7.7%.[16]

So my next question would be, is how reliable and reproduced is James Kellaris' research? I think if everyone other than myself had been having such irritations throughout their lives, I would have heard more complaints about it. In other words, this is not passing a very basic smell test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm#cite_note-16

 

[QuickTwist]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

I was going to ask you for a cite on that stat, but I just web searched. I found wikipedia claiming:


So my next question would be, is how reliable and reproduced is James Kellaris' research? I think if everyone other than myself had been having such irritations throughout their lives, I would have heard more complaints about it. In other words, this is not passing a very basic smell test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm#cite_note-16

Err... what is your argument that earworm doesn't happen as often as it should? Because people don't complain about it? OK.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

I'm saying I don't believe the 98% earworm stat, because I haven't experienced it, and it has rarely if ever been brought to my attention by anybody else. So I'd like to know how many people James Kellaris studied to arrive at his figure, and if anyone else has reproduced his results.

The source said he presented at the Society for Consumer Psychology conference in 2003. I've looked up the conference submission details for winter 2016. http://www.chilleesys.com/scp/public/index.aspx They have a "competitive paper" and a "working paper" track. The former is for completed work, the latter for work in progress. The submissions guidelines say:

Submissions will be judged on the following criteria:
 Quality of the research
 Contribution to the field of consumer psychology
 Interest of the topic to SCP members.

Doesn't say who judges. This doesn't sound like peer reviewed research, especially if he only presented a work in progress. I couldn't find documents from the 2003 conference, let alone of his presentation there. They had some .PDFs of things from later conferences.

I only found 2 papers citing his work.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/showciting?cid=8963952

So now to me the question is, what does anyone else say about earworm frequency, other than this guy? If everybody's quoting his stat just because it's on wikipedia, that's not science.

I have found a seemingly peer reviewed paper. "Earworms (stuck song syndrome): Towards a natural history of intrusive thoughts". I found a .PDF for the full article. It confirms my suspicions regarding Kellaris:

However, the references most commonly cited in
the public media are to a series of unpublished studies by Kellaris (2001, 2003, 2006; these unpublished studies are also briefly reviewed in Kellaris, 2008, pp. 847-849) who refers to a “cognitive itch”.

The paper goes on to talk about a few empirical studies and what their actual observations were. It doesn't come up with anything like "98% of us experience earworms." Afterwards it states:

The brief review above represents, so far as we are aware, the sum total of peer-reviewed data on the earworm phenomenon to date. Lack of published data on the phenomenon has not prevented opinion and speculation appearing under the guise of accepted scientific fact, however.

This is all preamble and I'm running out of steam for digesting their results right now. But this looks like a responsible scientific paper to me.

 

[Hadoblado]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Caught red handed

I didn't look further than the wiki. I find it odd that you think it an unreasonable statistic based on a lack of people complaining. Complaining would by necessity be a smaller effect than the phenomenon itself, and it's not the sort of thing that it's productive to complain about. Furthermore, it's complained about, sometimes at length, by many. Your experience may differ (again). Sure. If the statistic given is poorly supported, fine, my apologies. It doesn't change my opinion that if you don't experience earworm you are lucky in some sense, and it certainly doesn't need to be 98% of the population experiencing it for it to be a relevant point of reference.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Caught red handed

I didn't look further than the wiki. I find it odd that you think it an unreasonable statistic based on a lack of people complaining.

Frankly it doesn't pass a basic scientific BS test. I identify as a scientific Skeptic so chasing down this kind of nonsense is sort of a hobby. I haven't gotten to the punchline of whether something peer reviewed has actually substantiated widespread earworm phenomena, as opposed to selective observation, but I do know that quoting wikipedia gives credence for the wrong reasons.

Things you hear on the internet aren't basically true. They take digging into primary sources, which is tedious.

Complaining would by necessity be a smaller effect than the phenomenon itself, and it's not the sort of thing that it's productive to complain about. Furthermore, it's complained about, sometimes at length, by many. Your experience may differ (again).

For a 98% stat, I shoulda run into it. You're making excuses. It was baloney.

The last time I got into some serious baloney, was a Skeptic meeting discussing "confabulation". An extraordinary claim was made that all of us confabulate all the time. I was like, baloney, prove that! I went out and looked for evidence. Far from what had been claimed by someone at the meeting, I only found confabulation as signs of serious brain injury or other ailment. The issue persisted in message boards for a few weeks and nobody ever came forth with proof of the claim. We all got lazy about it, but interest persists and we'll probably go at it again someday.

 

[Sinny91]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

Lol, my initial thoughts are wtf are earworms? Are you guys talking about earwigs? Because they are the stuff of fables of here too... Then again they could always exist.. Like Nargle's...

I wonder if it's even worth me googling earworms. It sounds like BS.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

It's clear that earworms exist as a psychological phenomenon, but I haven't found out their frequency in the general population yet, or if anyone even knows that in any provable way. As opposed to sensationalist claiming ways. It was the "Proceedings of the Society for Consumer Psychology", after all. Professional brainwashers and spin doctors. The Dr. in question was a Dr. of Marketing.

Checking whether a source is peer reviewed is important to epistemological questions. Peer review isn't perfect or uncorrupted, there have been some spectacular failures of that system, but overall it's way better than relying on materials pumped by a vanity press or conference.

 

[Hadoblado]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

You had this proposition that it was somehow media trained because you personally hadn't experienced the phenomenon, and couldn't imagine it. Sample size of one and you seemed pretty committed to the belief. When I threw in an alternative you cried bunk, disputing peripheral points instead of the central idea. It feels like you're selectively skeptical in this case. Probably a symptom of not being exposed to enough media.


Throw away the 98% thing. I was actually mentioning it to deescalate. You caught out my sloppy wikimanship. I was wrong (presumably), but you're making too big a deal of it.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

You had this proposition that it was somehow media trained because you personally hadn't experienced the phenomenon, and couldn't imagine it. Sample size of one and you seemed pretty committed to the belief.

I'm not married to it. But so far, on the subject of various hallucinations, I've not been proven wrong. I haven't found a paper yet that spells out, "this is why people have earworms," for instance.

When I threw in an alternative you cried bunk, disputing peripheral points instead of the central idea. It feels like you're selectively skeptical in this case.
Probably a symptom of not being exposed to enough media.

I don't intend to apologize for how a BS-meter works. When someone tells you "98% of everyone does X" it's a sweeping claim. Good to investigate whether it's wrong.

Throw away the 98% thing. I was actually mentioning it to deescalate.

Pity, as it didn't work! Although what it did do, is cause me to embark on a serious research effort to debunk it, whereas I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Anyways I don't care about deescalations, as a bad claim doesn't equal a nefarious person. Although, your avatar is slowly driving me craaaaaaaayyyzzeeeeeyyyyy

You caught out my sloppy wikimanship. I was wrong (presumably), but you're making too big a deal of it.

I don't know if it's important to you to realize that when called on something fairly wrong, and possibly completely wrong, you still attempted a lot of "face save" defending it. I wouldn't pick on it except this is an INTP forum. You were stretching P beyond credibility. It isn't always options, options, options, sometimes there's a result.

This morning I will read the rest of the "good" paper and see if it sheds more light.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: Broken shapes floating in my head.

I finished the paper. It includes the questionnaires that were submitted to ~100 people. I see a major methodological problem of substantiating what an "earworm" is, when we discuss it in a forum like this. This is what the questionnaire actually frames the problem as:

Catchy Tunes Questionnaire
This is a questionnaire about catchy tunes: - the ones that get stuck in your head even though you do not want them to stay there. Not much is known about catchy tunes, so your answers will help us understand them a bit more.

For a test taker to affirm, "Yes, I've heard a tune which I consider 'catchy' " is a trivial statement to make. Most musicians would not be doing their job if their music didn't bear remembering in any way.

What really matters is a definitional threshold for deciding that the phenomenon is an "earworm". The lowest amount of time that someone is allowed to state a catchy tune lasted in their mind, is "minutes". What about seconds? What about saying they don't think it happens to them? Also important is whether they think the phenomenon bothers them. If you don't recall something bothering you, there might not be much of anything to remember. Maybe some people have clear, unambiguous memory of an event, even if it didn't bother them, but I don't think this questionnaire would determine that.

I asked family members about earworms. I framed it as, not just a song you remembered or played in your mind, but that did so involuntarily, was possibly annoying, and went on for a long time. To which one asked, "How long, days?" To which I said, "Maybe hours." Both people I asked said no, but they had heard of this phenomenon on the news. One dismissed it as probably being a pretty rare thing.

Anyways the long and the short of it, is I don't see anything about this paper that states the occurrence of earworms in the general population. The threshold for what is an earworm would have to be rigorously defined somehow. I don't fault the paper methodologically per se. It was pretty explicit in its introduction that a proven methodology for dealing with this subject didn't exist yet, despite claims by previous researchers.

It would be precipitate to run a full experimental study on the earworm
phenomena since there is no clear theoretical framework in which to base such a study, and it is incumbent upon us to establish either the prevalence or importance of earworms to mental life before attempting to build such a framework (Neisser, 1976).

I think the paper does make 1 false claim:

All of the respondents recognised the “catchy tune” or earworm phenomenon.

The questions as given could not have demonstrated that. The statement conflates "catchy tune" with "earworm". No definitional statement or guidance is given as to what the difference between the two would be. Null questions don't exist to say, "Nope, earworm, never heard of it or experienced anything like that. What are you talking about?"

I do think the researchers were trying to be responsible and get a handle on what is going on. It might be interesting to see what other researchers citing their study thought, and if understanding has advanced in the last 5 years. But I think I will leave that homework to someone else. The main point I wanted to make, is that as of 2010 a lot of things aren't known about this phenomenon. I would go so far as to say that stating how frequently an earworm occurs in the general population, is definitional and purely speculative.

Going back to the original topic of the thread, there's a related literature on visual hallucinatory phenomena. I didn't look into that at all and will leave it totally to someone else. I will stand by my claim that seeing geometric shapes "loop" in one's mind, sounds a lot like too much time with internet or computer media inputs. Like I might expect it of someone who does a lot of CAD/CAM work perhaps? Anyways I bet you won't find answers to such a question just doing a quick look for the 1st claim on the internet you run into. I've demonstrated how sparsely studied the earworm phenomenon is, for instance, and the researchers called out the claims of other researchers as not grounded in science.

 

[Hadoblado]

I split the thread because derail.

Alrighty.

Okay I guess what I'm curious about is why you're doing this? You identify as Skeptic, but:

Spoiler

1) You're here on a forum for typology, and have referenced it in such a way that implies acceptance.

2) You cited no evidence for your conclusions regarding media influenced visuospatial rotation reset.

3) While having put much effort into debunking a throw-away claim, you're yet to make any correction to the wiki article in question.

4) You're willing to make broad statements about how unpervasive this phenomenon is based off a sample-size of one, and then later, of three, genetically related individuals.

Now, with (4), I think I'm probably misinterpreting you. You speak with a lot of confidence, as if an absence of evidence evidences absence. Well, it's sort of true, depending on your sample representativeness and the strength of the claim being made. Ninety-eight percent is inherently unlikely, so in the absence of evidence I'm happy to assume it spurious. As in your example of confabulation (which I also experience often), it's just unlikely that any unevidenced strong claim comes up true. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility, but I wouldn't believe it once I consider myself informed.

As for the first three points, I'll reiterate that I don't really see what you're trying to do here. If you're wanting to improve your own understanding then you shouldn't care about what I think. If you're here to better the understanding of everyone, to improve the process, and to have a positive impact on general comprehension, then that wiki article should have been edited.

By the same token, if you're actually skeptical, you shouldn't be going to lengths to disprove throwaway comments while letting typology slide. Also making ungrounded claims about the effects of media on specific visuospatial function? I mean I can see it happening, as there's plenty of evidence for certain media forms influencing cognitive capacity and even style, but if you're taking your skepticism seriously this has no place in conversation.

Your behaviour is consistent with an e-warrior rather than true skeptic. You set out to win a battle that you chose on your terms, taking steps to insure victory instead of addressing the actual issue your self-professed skepticism should have pointed you toward.

Anyway, at this point I'm just fighting you because I like to brawl. Neither of us believe the 98% claim anymore. You won in a very real sense (it's difficult to change minds on the internet). I think your skepticism has value, even if I find its direction in this case dubious. Welcome to the forum, you'll fit right in.

 

[bvanevery]

I split the thread because derail.

That's an awfully narrow interpretation. You didn't think bringing up earworms in the 1st place was a derail, so how can proving it true / false be a derail? I'm not going to engage you on your spoiler points. Aren't you derailing even getting into it? Is this thread now about earworms, or is it about you justifying your thread split at my expense?

Anyway, at this point I'm just fighting you because I like to brawl.

And it may come to the point where I think I need to report your post to a different moderator. I'll talk earworms with you, but I'm not going to talk "me".

 

[Hadoblado]

I brought up earworms in service to a point about the original topic. When the thread became about the truth value of my unevidenced assertion it was a derail (including the assertion itself). I didn't reprimand you for the derail, I was just keeping the forum organised, as it would be unfair on the OP for us to continue to use their topic as our battle ground. I don't see how it's at your expense.

If you think it somehow underhanded, take it up with another mod, and they can adjudicate via a private channel so I'm not party to proceedings.

I don't see anything untoward, but I can't rule out the possibility my judgement is impaired.

Edit: I'll ask myself. If I'm doing a poor job then I should know asap.

 

[bvanevery]

When the thread became about the truth value of my unevidenced assertion it was a derail.

You seem to think it's about me pushing truth values, and that very much came through in your 'spoiler' interrogation of my motives. It's not. It's about making scientifically factual statements about hallucinatory phenomena. I did maybe 5 hours of homework to learn all of that. I presented the results. What is the point of advising anybody about where their visual hallucinations are coming from, if one can't even speak scientifically about where a perceived "more common" auditory hallucination is coming from?

I'm not convinced you were actually invested in the subject, and I think that's part of the problem. I did a pile of work to figure some things out, for the potential benefit of the OP, and you seem to think it's all about your Wikipedia faux pas. I found out exactly what I expected, that people are spouting a lot of rubbish on this subject.

If you really were invested in the OP's experience, perhaps you could return to that thread, pull up scientific papers on visual hallucinations, make sure they're peer reviewed like I did, cogitate on what the papers are saying, and report a useful result on what's causing his condition. Which might be "nobody currently knows" or "you're OCD" or "you stare at geometry on monitors all day" or something else.

'Cuz I'm sure not gonna do it. I did my good deed for the week, it's your turn now.

I don't suppose you even skimmed the paper I linked? If you had, you might see the relevance. And also what you're in for, taking up the visual research.

 

[Hadoblado]

I wasn't invested in the subject because I thought it irrelevant. Can you tell me exactly why the prevalence of involuntary auditory loops are relevant to the OP's question, which was about voluntary visualised loops that were incomplete? How were you benefiting the OP by talking about this, when you finished up by surmising:

Going back to the original topic of the thread, there's a related literature on visual hallucinatory phenomena. I didn't look into that at all and will leave it totally to someone else. I will stand by my claim that seeing geometric shapes "loop" in one's mind, sounds a lot like too much time with internet or computer media inputs. Like I might expect it of someone who does a lot of CAD/CAM work perhaps? Anyways I bet you won't find answers to such a question just doing a quick look for the 1st claim on the internet you run into. I've demonstrated how sparsely studied the earworm phenomenon is, for instance, and the researchers called out the claims of other researchers as not grounded in science.

...Which, other than referring to how a different field of research is undeveloped, in no way took advantage of your research? You just did five hours of unrelated study to lead yourself back to your initial unsupported conclusion. I'm suprised you didn't pull a muscle pulling off the contortions required to pat yourself on the back so readily.

Your good deed was a result of your own interests, if it weren't it would have actually addressed the question. I have no personal interest in the OP's experience, for all I know they've left out of disinterest, or worse, been scared away by this silliness. I moderate the forum, that doesn't mean I go on research crusades to answer people's questions whenever they pop up. Funny how this devolved into a shitfight for the approval of an absent OP.

For the record I read the paper, though not immediately (before I split the thread). I still fail to see its relevance. Specifically, I fail to see how you have made use of the research to in any way address the OP's dilemma. This here:

What is the point of advising anybody about where their visual hallucinations are coming from, if one can't even speak scientifically about where a perceived "more common" auditory hallucination is coming from?

Makes no sense. Why is the auditory hallucination (this classification seems a stretch to me, since earworms and the rotating shape are not mistaken for reality) a higher priority than the visual? How does it follow that one can't know anything about spatial visualisation unless they know the prevalence and cause of auditory hallucinations?

Again, I appreciate the effort you put into research. I just think you're forcing its relevance is all.

 

[bvanevery]

I wasn't invested in the subject because I thought it irrelevant. Can you tell me exactly why the prevalence of involuntary auditory loops are relevant to the OP's question, which was about voluntary visualised loops that were incomplete?

I'm not invested in doing so. You are free to re-read my posts for your understanding. I've given you much better research materials to start with than you offered yourself. When you actually present some real research of some kind, peer reviewed, I will engage you again.

Funny how this devolved into a shitfight for the approval of an absent OP.

You have become the primary precipitant and need to clean up your language and tone as a moderator.

Again, I appreciate the effort you put into research.

No you don't. Prove it by your actions. Re-read, make the connections, do real work yourself instead of talking, and stop insulting.

Since I presume you'll be filing anything of worth in the original thread, I'm done with this one.

 

[Hadoblado]

I feel like spamming irrelevant studies at you, then demanding you connect the dots.

Last word.

 

[kora]

Make a forum poll about earworms

 

[Minuend]

Earworms must be in the top 10 of small talk topics around here. I hear people talk about them relatively often.

1st person: I got a song stuck on my brain
2nd person: Me too!
3rd person: Oh, it's so annoying when that happens
4th person: Here let me sing something more annoying to help you get rid of it

There was even a "news" article about it around the times The Fox was popular and then strategies about how to get rid of it.

What the % is of those who experience it I can't say. Though I don't know why the % affected would matter to the original post before the split. If the argument is these earworms don't exist... I find that kind of humorous. If you said that to someone here, they'd look at you like you were mad.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I thought earworms were bugs . Now I know a new word, thanks thread!