Scientists have discovered how earworms work; apparently they work a lot like histamines. A succes sful earworm creates a "cognitive itch" in the brain which can only be "scratche d" by repeating the tune over and over.

Mozart's children would "infuriate" him by playing melody and scales on the pian o below his room - but stopping before completing the tune. "He would have to r ush down and complete the scale because he couldn't bear to listen to an unresol ved scale," Mr Smith related.

It may be cause for some concern that this research was presented at a conferenc e on Consumer Psychology.

Want to say something? Do so here.

Note to spammers: This comment system applies the rel=nofollow attribute to the poster's URL and all links. Posting links to this page will not improve their search engine rankings.

Display name:
URL:(optional)
To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image on the right in the field below it.

Your Comment:

Remember my details.

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.