Fig 1.
Recognition of songs over time.
Dots represent the proportion of participants who reported to recognize a given song from a given year. The red curve represents the convolved average proportion for a given year, integrating over 5 years. Magenta dots represent songs from Phase 1 (2001 to 2015), blue dots represent songs from Phase 2 (1960 to 2000) and black dots represent songs from Phase 3 (1940 to 1959). Dashed vertical lines are decade markers.
Fig 2.
Recognition of clips over time.
Orange curve: 5 second clips, purple curve: 10 second clips, green curve: 15 second clips. All three curves represent the convolved average proportion for a given year, integrating over 5 years. Dashed vertical lines are decade markers.
Fig 3.
Quantifying average song recognition proportions and their variability over the three phases.
Left panel: Black dots represent the mean recognition rate for a given phase. Red bars represent the standard error of the mean. Right panel: Black dots represent the average residual—the distance between individual songs to the corresponding point on the convolved average (red curve) from Fig 1, for a given phase. Red bars represent the standard error of the mean.
Fig 4.
Song recognition versus play count.
Magenta dots represent songs from Phase 1 (2001 to 2015), blue dots represent songs from Phase 2 (1960 to 2000) and black dots represent songs from Phase 3 (1940 to 1959).
Fig 5.
Note that the data was smoothed by a 3-year moving average. A value of just above 10 in the early 1940s means that an average song was at the top of the charts for over 4 weeks in a row. The peak levels in the mid-1970s mean that the average song was only on top of the charts for little more than a week during that period.