Why Songs Get Stuck in Your Head

A few seconds of a song in a shop, and hours later it's still looping in your head. Why? In this video we go through brain scans of people "hearing" music in silence, a café waiter in 1920s Berlin, a study of 3,000 people's worst earworms, why chewing gum actually helps, and what earworms do to your sleep. 0:00 Intro: the song that won't leave 1:47 What an earworm actually is 4:09 Dartmouth: the brain keeps playing 6:30 The Zeigarnik effect: unfinished songs 8:47 What makes a song sticky 11:35 Triggers: why now? 13:04 The Goldilocks effect 13:38 The chewing gum trick 15:45 Earworms and sleep 17:43 Who gets the most earworms? 18:39 Why would a brain do this? 20:19 The full answer Sources: Kraemer et al. (2005), Nature: sound of silence activates auditory cortex Liikkanen (2012), Psychology of Music: survey of 12,000+ people on involuntary musical imagery Zeigarnik (1927): memory for interrupted tasks Hyman et al. (2013), Applied Cognitive Psychology: "Going Gaga", investigating earworms Jakubowski, Finkel, Stewart & Müllensiefen (2016), Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts: dissecting an earworm Beaman et al. (2015), Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: chewing gum and earworms Scullin, Gao & Fillmore (2021), Psychological Science: bedtime music, involuntary musical imagery and sleep Mark Twain (1876), A Literary Nightmare If you've ever typed a question into a search bar and got a one-line reply that didn't really explain anything, this channel is for you. Subscribe for the next long answer. #earworm #psychology #brain