Ira Hyman

So you hear a song on the radio or at a party and four days later you find you are still humming it in the elevator on the way to the office.
You've been infected by an "earworm," a persistent song or sound that repeats in your brain until you consider kicking the person who…

Contrary to popular belief, it's not always an obnoxious song that gets planted in your head. Seventy percent of the time an ear worm is a song you actually like.

It is one of life's most common irritations: the song you do not even like that becomes stuck in your head.

Take, for instance, Mission-born Carly Rae Jepsen's big hit, Call Me Maybe. It's tuneful, it's catchy - and once it gets in your head it's hard to get out…

Some songs just get stuck in your head, whether you like them or not. However, a recent study claims to have found the key to kicking that Taylor Swift tune out of your head: puzzles.

Virtually everyone experiences them, and rarely are they thought of fondly. They are earworms, the tunes that burrow into our consciousness and play on repeat.

In a recent study involving hundreds of people, Ira Hyman Jr. of Western Washington University and colleagues looked at what made…

It sounds shocking, but earworms are an epidemic that affect at least 90 percent of people as often as once a week. That’s according to a Goldsmiths University study. But before you go logging onto WebMD, fear not! These earworms are more commonly referred to as songs, regular old songs — often…

It may seem that only annoying songs get stuck in our head but a new study reveals the opposite is actually true.

Researchers at Western Washington University found songs people know and love are more likely to repeat in the brain and environmental cues triggered this phenomenon.

Studies have shown that it's easy to make people falsely recall small details about events, but as the fake memories grow in complexity and specificity, implantation grows progressively harder, though not impossible. After three interviews, researchers at Western Washington University…

Think of a song.

Now let me make a few predictions about the song in your head.

It's probably one that you enjoy, or at least don't mind. You likely heard just a part of it, perhaps the chorus. And the song didn't linger, but it has a good chance of popping into your…