Back in 2008, Dr. Lassi A. Liikkanen [pictured] of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), University of Helsinki, Finland performed a formal scientific study to investigate INvoluntary Musical Imagery (INMI), a phenomenon more commonly known as an Earworm. Now Dr Liikkanen, along with Kelly Jakubowski and Jukka M. Toivanen have for the first time […]
Tag: songs
They Remember Memorable Music
Who remembers memorable music? This study examines one aspect of that question: “A Song to Remember: Emerging Adults Recall Memorable Music,” Julia R. Lippman and Dara N. Greenwood [pictured here], Journal of Adolescent Research, vol. 27, no. 6 (2012): 751-774. BONUS: Professor Greenwood’s “Joking in the face of death: A terror management approach to humor production”
Misheard Song Lyrics (computerised)
As enthusiasts of kissthisguy.com (* see note below) will know, the task of correctly identifying pop music lyrics is not always 100% straightforward. Here’s one to try . . . Difficulties arise not only for human listeners, but also for computerised speech-recognition systems. In spite of, or perhaps because of its inherent complexity, there are […]
Numbers Stations – an anachronism ahead of their time?
It’s 1963, the height of the Cold War. Safely out of sight and earshot, an international espionage agent sits furtively huddled over a short-wave radio, listening intently for strings of seemingly random numbers. Despite the high levels of static interference, they’re painstakingly written down, one by one, and later tabulated against a ‘one time pad‘ […]
Kevin, the singing biochemistry instructor: Gluconeogenesis
Dr. Kevin Ahern is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Oregon State University, US. Dr. Ahern Kevin has created a selection of “Wildly Popular Metabolic Melodies, Verses and Mildly Popular Limericks” Here is an example : a melody entitled ‘Gluconeogenesis’ Also see : Ahern, Kevin. “Song: I’m a Little Mitochondrion […]
Love-words have been disappearing from love songs
Words about love are, or at least were, disappearing from love songs. This University of Colorado study quantified the phenomenon: “Expressions of love, sex, and hurt in popular songs: A content analysis of all-time greatest hits,” Richard L. Dukes [pictured here], Tara M. Bisel, Karoline N. Borega, Eligio A. Lobato, Matthew D. Owens, The Social Science […]