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Ask HN: What is the evolutionary explanation for having a song stuck in my head?
7 points by avindroth on Aug 31, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 11 comments



Your brain tries to match sensory data with things, so you hear two noises in the background, something in your head says that sounds familiar, then your brain goes over it until it comes to the conclusion that it's a tiger or food or the intro to Funkytown. Once your brain makes the association, it thinks the song is relevant and tries to make more associations keeping it in your thoughts.

Music finds it evolutionary beneficial so songs have evolved to become earworms that you'll sometimes spread to other hosts. It's not really detrimental to humans, so there's no impetus to weed it out.


And is this a falsifiable explanation, or another of those "just so" speculations?


Yes a lot of these theories and speculations tend to not be scientifically tractable. I did an Anthropology minor in college but became very unimpressed with the mainstream theories regarding the evolution of various modern traits. Seemed like a competition to see who could come up with the most seductive, crazy theory and not the falsifiable one.


I tried to keep it grounded enough to be testable (and probably failed), but it was just speculation in hopes to get the ball rolling on the conversation.


Thanks, I now have the intro to Funkytown stuck in my head


Long-distance running on the savanna exerted many selective pressures on early humans.

Hearing rhythmic sounds in your head could arise from prehistoric humans running in groups together- music / songs on repeat helps synchronize pace and maintain tight formation.

The Bipedal Hypothesis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_musicology


Possible explanations:

+ the world ends and starts as music.

+ the resonance of the cavity of your inner ear adds to the suggested best-fit-auto-fit-auditory-consciousness-[memory] as qbrass pointed out.

+ birds must remember songs to communicate effectively, a lot of their understanding is based on the shape of their beaks and lungs. based on our "evolutionary shape" or "genetic fractal manifestations" our conch-like ears are good for resonating tones that could be beneficial to us (like mating calls)

+ from a linguistic evolution point of view, something that not only carries the soothing calm of a mother's voice but also helpful information becomes something worth repeating for sake of the individual and the species at large

+ typically people recall the lyrics to a song, or the vocal melody line, but people who play instruments can get bass or drum parts "stuck in their head" so evolutionarily speaking it is all about what your instrument of communication is (that coordinates sound and physical expressivity)

+ kaw!


There's been a fair amount of research, most recently at Goldsmiths University in London: http://www.gold.ac.uk/music-mind-brain/earworm-project/


I don't know, but you could think about the evolution not of your brain but of the melodic meme. You know about the song because it has the catchiness property, and it spreads because you keep whistling it.


Could be a bug in our firmware.


Why do you think there's an evolutionary explanation for it beyond "the human brain is a big lump of meat in a chemical stew and stuff happens sometimes"?




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