School of Psychology & Counselling, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Nov;76(11):2535-2545. doi: 10.1177/17470218231152368. Epub 2023 Feb 4.
An "earworm"-the experience of a catchy melody that repeats persistently in the mind-is a ubiquitous yet mysterious cognitive phenomenon. Previous research demonstrates that earworms for vocal music engage working memory resources, manifesting as "inner singing." This study investigated whether this effect is moderated by prior exposure to music. In one experimental session, participants ( = 44) were presented with four novel song choruses. To manipulate exposure, each song was presented between one and four times, counterbalanced across participants. The following day, participants undertook a serial recall task during and following presentation of each song. In addition, they rated the music on familiarity, enjoyment, their desire to sing along, and perceived catchiness, both before and following the experiment. Increased exposure to novel songs on the first day tended to result in greater interference on task performance during and following their presentation on the second day, yet the effect varied depending on the song. Ratings of the desire to sing along and perceived familiarity increased significantly between the sessions for all songs. These findings are important in understanding the relative influence of familiarity and song-level characteristics on the development of an earworm.
“耳虫”——即一段旋律不断在脑海中重复的令人难以忘怀的体验——是一种普遍而神秘的认知现象。先前的研究表明，人声音乐的“耳虫”会占用工作记忆资源，表现为“内心歌唱”。本研究探讨了这种效应是否受到音乐先前暴露的影响。在一个实验环节中，参与者（n=44）被呈现了四个新的歌曲片段。为了操纵暴露，每个歌曲在参与者之间以一到四次的方式平衡呈现。第二天，参与者在每个歌曲呈现期间和之后进行了一系列的回忆任务。此外，他们在实验前后对音乐的熟悉度、享受程度、想要哼唱的愿望以及感知的感染力进行了评价。第一天对新歌的接触增加往往会导致第二天在歌曲呈现期间和之后的任务表现受到更大的干扰，但这种效果取决于歌曲。在两次会议期间，所有歌曲的哼唱愿望和感知熟悉度的评分都显著增加。这些发现对于理解熟悉度和歌曲特征对“耳虫”发展的相对影响很重要。
