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Music fans know what they really, really want when it comes to a catchy tune – and it's Wannabe, by the Spice Girls.

The group's debut hit was named the catchiest UK single in an online experiment involving over 12,000 people.

Despite being released 18 years ago, participants recognised the song in just 2.3 seconds, compared to an average of five seconds for other pop tunes. 

'Wannabe' by the Spice Girls (pictured) has been named the catchiest UK single in an online experiment involving over 12,000 people, which set out to examine what makes a song memorable

Spice Girls joke about with Prince Phillip in 1996

The experiment revolved around an online game called Hooked on Music. It was developed by the Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi) and formed part of a study examining what makes a song memorable.

In it, players were asked to identify a song as quickly as possible, from 1,000 clips dating from the 1940s to the present day.

Wannabe took an average of 2.29 seconds for a participant to recognise its catchiest hook, which is 'if you wanna be my lover' and occurs 45 seconds into the track.

Lou Bega's Mambo Number Five and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, were named the second and third catchiest tunes and were recognised in an average of 2.48 seconds and 2.62 seconds respectively, it was revealed at the Manchester Science Festival.

This video shows the top 10 catchiest songs, as recognised in the online experiment. In it, players were asked to identify a song as quickly as possible, from 1,000 clips dating from the 1940s to the present day

The average time it took for participants to recognise a song across all the best-selling clips was just five seconds. 

The study suggests that spending weeks at number one or selling 'double platinum' doesn't mean a tune will be catchy in the long-term.

Scientists think a catchy song has to strike a balance between prominent hooks and other musical features.

Ashley Burgoyne, a computational musicologist from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands who led the study, explained: 'All of the tracks we examined are among the best-known pop tracks in the UK, and none of them showed extreme differences in recognisability between their hooks and their least-catchy moments: no more than 30 per cent of what would theoretically be possible.

'But given that constraint, the catchiest songs also showed the greatest differences in recognisability between their hooks and their verses or bridges.'

Dr Burgoyne is fascinated by how the brain processes music and why some tunes are more memorable than others.

Having analysed how memorable segments of the songs are, he will now look at the precise music devices that make them so catchy.

'Although this is just a casual observation on my part, very strong melodic hooks seem to be the most memorable for people,' he told the BBC. 

The game will remain online and can be played until the end of this year.

Dr Burgoyne hopes that from it, scientists may gain a better understanding of how musical memory works, which could one day be used to help people with dementia.

'There has already been some research that shows that if you can find the right piece of music, something that had a very strong meaning, playing that piece of music can be very therapeutic. But the challenge is figuring out what is the best piece of music,' he said.

Lou Bega's Mambo Number Five ( artwork from the single is shown) and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, were named the second and third catchiest tunes and were recognised in an average of 2.48 seconds and 2.62 seconds respectively, it was revealed at the Manchester Science Festival