50 years of research has focused on unraveling the relationship between music and frisson

Music may give some of us the chills and goose bumps—perhaps because it shocks us

The science is still unsettled about why music can trigger a chill down your spine, formally known as frisson, but one theory is that anything surprising to the nervous system—including sudden beat drops or unexpected harmonies—stimulates a type of alarm response that gives rise to this feeling.

The brains of people who experience frisson have unique neural pathways

A small 2016 study aimed to investigate the behavioral and neural differences between 10 individuals who experience goose bumps when listening to music and 10 who typically don’t. Scientists reported that individuals experiencing musical chills had greater white matter connectivity in specific auditory, emotional, and social processing areas of the brain.

Audio and visual cues from "Titanic," Pink Floyd, and more can provoke goose bumps

These audio and visual snippets have been used in research studies to elicit goose bumps.

Music that builds to a crescendo and then resolves relieves stress more than listening to nature sounds.

Can music alter your memories?

You’re familiar with music’s ability to transport you to a past experience, but new research suggests that music can even alter how you remember your past experiences. A team of psychology researchers and music experts recently published a study that demonstrates how music can help shift our emotional recollection of a memory. Read to learn more about the study’s findings and how it could influence therapy practices.

Your favorite music can minimize physical pain, according to a 2025 study on how music can bring solace and address pain.

Playing music enhances the creation, storage, and retrieval of memories

Scans of the brains of individuals who play instruments have shown enhanced connectivity between multiple brain regions—visual, auditory, and motor cortices—and the corpus callosum, which connects the two brain hemispheres. These complex connections are strengthened through practice and then used in other activities that involve both logic and creativity. The brains of musicians also appear to give experiences multiple types of memory tags, such as audio, emotional, and conceptual, improving their processing.

Some theorize that horror's artifice turns fear into enjoyment

The “excitation transfer theory” suggests that the unpleasant feelings a jump scare might elicit (like shortness of breath) are quickly relieved when the audience member remembers what they’re witnessing is fake.

Nine different studies exploring animals' relationship to music

Researchers have conducted multiple studies attempting to answer a certain question: do animals like human music? Across species, they observed different results and no clear pattern. Primates appear to prefer silence, and cockatoos appear to dance to funky beats.

Visualizing a synaesthetic soundscape

Artist Michal Levy has chromesthesia, a subtype of synesthesia in which sounds and music trigger involuntary associations with and sensations of color. This condition gives Levy a unique artistic perspective and ability to interact with and interpret music. In this short animation, Levy tries to capture her audiovisual experience of 'Giant Steps," considered a landmark composition in jazz history by musician John Coltrane.

Breaking down the music theory of Hitchcock's 'Psycho'

One of the defining features of Hitchcock’s film “Psycho” (1960) is the music, especially the sounds you hear during some particularly grisly scenes. This analysis from The Music Professor analyzes how that music complements the film, highlighting the way strings match the intensity of the film’s screenplay and black-and-white cinematography.

Inside the rise of focus music

Any casual YouTube or Spotify user has likely stumbled upon a playlist called "lo-fi beats to study and relax to" while searching for new music. Those "lo-fi beats" actually represent a growing genre of music called "focus music." Spotify, for instance. saw a 50% increase in listening time for focus playlists in its 2023 Wrapped report. This article explains why productivity tunes are on an upswing right now. Read it here.

Arnold Schoenberg expanded the confines of music by abandoning traditional chords and embracing dissonance.

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

The science of fear

The Hidden Brain podcast team explores the science of fear by traveling to a haunted house curated by a scientist to investigate what scares us, and why some people enjoy this sensation more than others.

Researchers say that the horror genre offers opportunities to safely experiment with fear.

The "reminiscence bump" causes memories from adolescence to last

Research shows that the "reminiscence bump" phenomenon, which applies to memories formed between the ages of 10 and 30, contributes to songs from those ages triggering the most intense nostalgia. This may be due to biological and hormonal changes enhancing memory effectiveness during adolescence.

Researchers are studying roller coasters to improve mental health treatments

Scary rides stimulate our fight-or-flight response while simultaneously releasing feel-good endorphins like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Once we realize we're in a safe space, we can enjoy the ride and even feel confident and relieved by the accomplishment of overcoming a fearful feat.

The belief that classical music enhances intelligence is mostly incorrect

"The Mozart Effect" was based on a 1993 study by psychologist Francis Rauscher. Rauscher played a Mozart Piano Sonata for college students and then assessed their spatial reasoning, finding it improved for 10 to 15 minutes. The media ran with a simpler story: listening to classical music made you smarter.

Goose bumps are often triggered by emotions

A physiologist and professor of zoology explains that the subconscious release of adrenaline, a stress hormone, causes a contraction of skin muscles. It’s released in several situations, including when humans are cold, afraid, or feel strong emotions. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Scientists are learning to guide your dreams using sound and touch.

When common sounds become disturbing

Misophonia causes certain sounds to feel violating, triggering a "very visceral kind of experience" filled with extremely unpleasant emotions, including annoyance, anger, and disgust. A 2017 study found that people with misophonia have elevated activity in the brain's anterior insula—a region associated with interoception, emotional processing, and behavioral responses—when exposed to trigger sounds. Ongoing research suggests trigger sound context affects the severity and manifestation of the condition.

Theories vary on why we love to eat spicy food—even when it hurts.

Misfired motor signals may explain why many people with schizophrenia hear voices

Up to 80% of schizophrenia patients may have auditory hallucinations. Recent research concluded that this symptom may be from misfired motor signals that feed into each other, essentially failing to suppress certain sensory neural activities and that resulting overexcitment fuels hallucinations. The finding suggests that, one day, magnetic pulses might be used to stimulate specific nerves to better regulate the errant signals and reduce or stop hallucinations. (Some users may encounter a paywall.)

The science of spring fever

Researchers have confirmed what people have sensed for ages: Our emotions during the springtime can go a little wild. This piece breaks down the impact of the seasonal transition on our bodies and prescribes a few ways to mitigate the effects.

Finding delight through your five senses

Digging into your immediate senses is shown to benefit your overall psychological well-being, from the happy memories evoked by familiar scents or through the transformative power of birdsong. This episode from the Science of Happiness podcast highlights insights from Gretchen Rubin, an author who has written books on the importance of engaging your senses for a happy life.

Some of us can control our goose bumps

A small 2018 study examined the rare ability to control goose bumps. Researchers found some intriguing associations between having a particularly open and curious personality type and the ability to trigger this sensation—a link that they hope will be explored further in the future.

The psychedelic playlist inspired by a Johns Hopkins experiment

Dating back to 1967, the playlist is over seven hours long and organized in such a manner as to echo users’ experiences as their trips rise, crest, and fall. According to the initial creator of the playlist, the music is a “nonverbal support system” that keeps users from prematurely returning to normal consciousness.

Individuals with synesthesia experience involuntarily overlapping sensations

Tasting words or seeing colors in music results from the brain retaining extrasensory connections from infancy. While most lose these neural pathways during development, about 4% of people are synesthetes, maintaining them without realizing it's unusual.

Why grocery stores play music while you shop

Grocery stores don't play music just for the good vibes. Store soundtracks have been proven to increase spending and improve customer experiences, especially if the music is upbeat. If the tunes are nostalgic for the stores' key demographics, it can help develop a store’s desired brand identity. This article from Reader's Digest details the many reasons behind this strategy.

The research that led to sour

Scientists are trying to figure out if there are unique receptors that respond to the molecules that make up flavors we associate with calcium, blood, batteries, and other items that often escape dinner menus. Taste researcher Dr. Danielle Reed says the minimum evidence for a taste category typically involves identifying dedicated receptors and then removing them to show the taste vanishes.

Humans are wired to pick up on each other's emotion, making laughter contagious

The reaction plays a key role in establishing interpersonal connections and relieving stress by releasing endorphins—feel-good hormones. A 2021 study identified at least 65 animal species that produce playful sounds, such as laughter.

One classical musician arranged a work specifically for yoga

In the middle of a yoga class, Ellen Fishman noticed that sitting closer to a speaker allowed her to feel the music in her body, enhancing her overall experience. She arranged music for a string ensemble with a yoga session in mind. The group, StringFlo, now performs the work live in yoga classes.

How we frame stress—as good or bad—seems to alter how it affects us

This podcast discusses research that indicates stress perception may drastically affect how we respond to it. In research exploring if our stress is presented as diminishing our health versus if we're told it enhances our performance, it will lead to differences in how successful participants are at performing tasks—with the enhancers doing better.

Phil Spector's 'wall of sound' revolutionized girl groups—and pop music

The method captured a room of live musicians and transmitted the sound into a basement outfitted with more speakers and microphones. That sound was then sent into the central control room, producing a massive recording that sounded unlike anything else in pop music.

The neurobiology of meaningfulness: the benefits of psychedelics

Psychedelics produce powerful emotions in its users, including a profound sense of meaningfulness. The philosopher William James called this sense "noetic" in the late 19th century, but for decades researchers avoided studying the effects of such drugs on the brain. However, the recent resurgence in psychedelic research has heightened interest in the relationship between this noetic sense resulting from the therapeutic use of drugs. Learn what researchers have found out here.

Fearology, or the study of fear, explores the difference between stress and fear

Our brains involuntarily respond to our environment and signal alarm when that isn't always needed, triggering responses that include goose bumps. But understanding fear and how to talk our brains into calming down can improve daily life.

Horror video games rely on terrifying sound design

Horror has become a popular gaming genre, which designers say is due, in large part, to the games' soundtracks. Don Veca, the audio director for the game Dead Space, said, “Sound and music prepare the player to be scared – it’s all about the buildup, the tension, and then the release when something jumps out at you.”

There’s a lot we still don’t know about goose bumps in humans

Though goose bumps can be associated with changes in skin temperature, the biggest gaps in our understanding are around measuring goose bumps from nonthreatening exposures. These bumps can often occur without our detection, and we have trouble correctly identifying them. The relationship between emotionally induced chills and goose bumps can also be tenuous.

By igniting flammable gas in a tube filled with holes and playing music into it, the fire will take the shape of the sound waves, enabling the visualization of audio.

How Spotify creates niche genres

One of Spotify's most recognizable features is its playlists. The provider offers an endless stream of strangely titled mixes with names like "Hyperpop," "Phonk," and "Lorem," which suggest uniform genres and scenes despite featuring seemingly random assortments of artists and songs. This article unpacks why Spotify organizes its music in this way and how, unintentionally, the process erases organic movements that developed outside of the app.

The surprising and strange sources behind 12 famous songs

Britney Spears's "Toxic" borrowed strings from a 1981 Bollywood film, Billie Eilish sampled The Office, and one duo made an entire album using only the sounds of their Whirlpool washing machine. Explore how sampling can pull from pretty much anywhere.

Why so many people love roller coasters even though they’re scary

When a threat arises, it triggers our bodies to go into fight-or-flight mode and prepare for danger. However, when no obvious threat to our safety is present, this natural high can become enjoyable. Some people are more likely to enjoy these thrills based on factors like individual brain chemistry or physical health.

Examining self-diagnosed synesthesia

A growing number of people on social media claim to have a perceptual condition that lets them smell colors, see music, or taste sounds. But do they really?

Arnold Schoenberg's experimentations with dissonance and sound influenced the way films are scored.

How to build curiosity

Change and uncertainty induce stress, but reframing the unknown into an opportunity for discovery has tangible benefits. Approaching change with curiosity enhances activity in the hippocampus and promotes neuroplasticity, promoting learning and serving as a barrier against anxiety. A neuroscientist explains how embracing the unknown, trying small experiments, and other techniques build curiosity.

Viral pop artists create systems of participation, not just music

Musicologist (and Swift expert) Paula Clare Harper weighs in on the factors that make music go viral. Tracks designed for shareability that feed well into content algorithms on streaming platforms are able to grow in popularity, with traditional human gatekeepers sidelined.

Visualizing shifts in emotional performance in film

Computational scientists were curious: has the intensity of emotional expression in films changed over the decades? Using their sophisticated analytical models, the researchers discovered actors' emotional performance has declined in intensity over time. They believe the close-up shots common in contemporary film-making allows actors to be more subtle in their performance. Check out the main takeaways and charts with this unusual study.

Explore a visual and auditory guide to wave properties and waveforms to learn how every sound imaginable can be created by combining multiple vibrations of air.

Explore the biology of pain and why the experience of pain may differ widely from one person to another.