Is there a word for..

Gordon

I was in the car driving with my parents on a 2.5 hour trip round windy country roads and after a couple of hours I needed to open the window to get some air as I was feeling a bit car sick. My father asked if the smell of the dog in the back was getting to me, and it was only then that I smelled it and it made me feel worse as now I could smell the dog. I wasn't too happy about being made to notice this smell!

And today I was in the cinema and I noticed a woman sniffing every once in a while and took no life changing notice of it. Then after a while I heard her again and remembered the dog in the car story and suddenly I was noticing her every sniffle and the last half hour of the film was bloody annoying. (Great film though, American Gangster).

Just wondering if there is a word for this - noticing something annoying only when pointed out by someone else, and not being able to get it out of your mind after it is pointed out. Like that annoying song that someone sings that gets stuck in your head maybe?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

there's probably a german word for it..

seamus

Verschniftenschlauderwertenzenfurter

There's probably a more general psychological term for it, rather than a single word, I'd say.

lucille

Mordeth wrote: »

there's probably a german word for it..

:D

i'm afraid there isn't. there is a german word for the annoying song mentioned, though (Ohrwurm).

DublinWriter

seamus wrote: »

There's probably a more general psychological term for it, rather than a single word, I'd say.

'Anamnesis' would be the closest I could think of.

Gordon

Hmm, how about a made up one like cacoanamnesis then? Or involuntary cacoanamnesis, yeah, that's better! The only thing I can think of to do with the annoying song type thing would be involuntary recognition. But that sounds rather dull.

deman

A new word should be made up for this instantly and I have the perfect word...

tomcruise - (v) to point something/body out to someone to deliberately annoy them.
I was having a perfectly good time and the conference until my colleague tomcruised me about the speaker feedback.

tomcruiser - (n) something/body that seems to annoy everybody at the mere mention of it.

JæKæ

Might be worth asking in the psychology forum maybe?

tolosenc

Schadenfreude, for the person who pointed it out to you...