[douglasdickel]

Dean Burnett, neuroscientist and author of Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To, explains. In a fast car, there’s already a lot of predictable background noise caused by the hum of an engine, which shifts your brain’s baseline slightly, making you particularly apt to absorb the novelty of music. “It’s a providing a useful comparison to the actual music, to make you more reactive to it,” Burnett says of the steady vroom. When you’re listening to music in a car, the brain is trying to integrate a plethora of sensory information, including a lower-level vibration along with the signs and lights offering visual context on the other side of the windshield. Finally, there’s an emotional component. On the road, there can be a sense of freedom, of control. That’s a positive thing, and the brain will associate that feeling of power with the music playing. “Then, if you’re out with friends, it goes, ‘Cool, that’s our music,’” Burnett says. (Pitchfork)