Science Friday Podcast Recap: Why Do Some Songs Stick in Our Heads?

What is the science behind what may be referred to as "earworms", or songs that seem to stick in peoples' heads? What makes some songs stick in our heads while others do not? What does the repetitive quality of certain songs have to do with it? Elizabeth Margulis, author of "On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind" and music professor at the University of Arkansas, has some possible answers to these questions. Earworms, according to Margulis, come to people involuntarily - thus, people do not have a choice as to what song repeats in their head. They also tend to be snippets of songs as opposed to the entire song, these snippets often being portions of the chorus or the most repeated part of the song that is approximately ten seconds long. Margulis also added that earworms have more of an impact upon everyday life than one would think, as many advertisers use songs likely to insinuate these earworms as bait to lure customers to their products with their catchy tunes. On a more neurological level, earworms function in an extraordinary way. When sounds are repeated, people are prone to anticipate the coming sound, and it leads people to sing along. There are even extreme cases of earworms, where certain people cannot seem to rid themselves of the earworm. For more of this podcast episode, see here: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-friday-audio-podcast/episode/34210752?autoplay=true