The Earworm Effect

Overview

Objectives/Goals Which gender, between eleven to thirteen year olds, will experience INMI (Involuntary Musical imagery) more, after listening to clips of three well known songs? Methods/Materials I clipped the three well known songs to make one three minute long song. I played the video in each class. The next day, I had the class fill out a survey asking questions about their experience with those songs and INMI. There were 186 participants. Materials: surveys (created to ask questions about INMI) Speaker or way to play music male and female students from 11-13 years old Results The males had 35.6% did not experience INMI with a song from the video and 64.4% did. Of the male students who did not experience INMI with a song from the video, 29.4% had an outside song in their head. Of females, 16.7% did not experience INMI with a song from the video and 83.3% did. Of the females that did not experience INMI with a song from the video, 37.5% had an outside song in their head. Overall females experienced INMI more than males. There is an 18.9% difference between females and males who had songs stuck in their heads, which is significant. Of those who didn't get a song from the video stuck in their head, more females than males had an outside song stuck in their head, a difference of 8.1%. Conclusions/Discussion Between eleven to thirteen-year-olds, females experienced INMI more than males after listening to clips of three well known songs. This research was important because differences in the male and female brain is a fairly new area of study and Involuntary Musical Imagery is shrouded in speculation.

Competition history

• CSEF 2018 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0713

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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