A new study by the partnership of Martin Lindstrom and Elias Arts has discerned the most ‘addictive,’ or irresistible, sounds to Americans.

Lindstrom is the best-selling author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. He uses the tools of neuroscience to help businesses better understand their customers – or perhaps put more accurately, to discern what consumers respond to most, in order to advertise more strategically.

Lindstrom is also the chairman and founding partner of Buyology Inc – tag line “Consciously Leveraging the Non-Conscious.” He was named one of TIME Magazine’s ‘World’s 100 Most Influential People’ in 2009 and is a ‘trusted advisor’ to several Fortune 100 companies including McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Nestle, American Express, and Microsoft.

In the study, Lindstrom and Elias Arts wired up 50 volunteers, and monitored their pupil, brainwave and facial muscle activity as they listened to 50 everyday and culturally significant sounds. Their responses indicated both positive and negative reactions.

What the study (if we can call it that, with only 50 participants) is teaching Lindstrom and his colleagues is that marketers have been depending largely on the sense of sight in advertising – no surprise there – and have been neglecting something perhaps more powerful: the sense of sound.

Results from the study indicate, first, that the sounds of nature are not the most stimulating or "addicting” – apparently the sounds of ocean waves or birds singing does not get our cultural heart pumping at this time.

We are recalling how important and primal sound is. And the fact that a baby giggling remains our number one irresistible sound (on both the branded and non-branded lists) regardless of our technical advancements in an ear-bud world is good news.

A baby’s laugh crosses all cultural, generational, racial, economic, religious and national lines.

There is hope.   

For more information:

ABC News: The World's 10 Most Addictive Sounds

 Fast Company: The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the World