A model of time-varying music engagement

Expectation is crucial for our enjoyment of music, yet the underlying generative mechanisms remain unclear. While sensory models derive predictions based on local acoustic information in the auditory signal, cognitive models assume abstract knowledge of music structure acquired over the long term. To evaluate these two contrasting mechanisms, we compared simulations from four computational models of musical expectancy against subjective expectancy and pleasantness ratings of over 1000 chords sampled from 739 US Billboard pop songs. Bayesian model comparison revealed that listeners' expectancy and pleasantness ratings were predicted by the independent, non-overlapping, contributions of cognitive and sensory expectations. Furthermore, cognitive expectations explained over twice the variance in listeners’ perceived surprise compared to sensory expectations, suggesting a larger relative importance of long-term representations of music structure over short-term sensory–acoustic information in musical expectancy. Our results thus emphasize the distinct, albeit complementary, roles of cognitive and sensory expectations in shaping musical pleasure, and suggest that this expectancy-driven mechanism depends on musical information represented at different levels of abstraction along the neural hierarchy.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives’.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive and sensory expectations independently shape musical expectancy and pleasure

Cheung,

Harrison,

Koelsch

et al. 2023

“…The first part of the issue, entitled “General Issues”, gathers contributions that clarify the conceptual bases of the encounter between PP and aesthetics and expand it in new directions [ 98 , 142 , 148 , 149 ]. The three parts that follow—devoted to “Visual Art” [ 63 , 123 ], “Music” [ 102 , 132 , 133 ] and “Literature, Narrative and Cinema” [ 56 , 95 , 96 , 125 ] respectively—offer an articulate picture of the insights that PP can provide when applied to different art forms (including some that have so far been little or never explored from a PP perspective), and what in turn these art forms, when considered from a PP perspective, can tell us about our mental functioning. The last part, entitled “Responses and Critical Perspectives” contains papers that compare the PP picture of our aesthetic encounters with other leading proposals in the field and provide useful criticisms and indications for future research [ 64 , 107 , 108 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Psychologists and neuroscientists moving within the PP approach are starting to use this expertise for their theoretical and empirical work (see e.g. [55,56,97,[131][132][133]). Here again the insights of artists and aestheticians, complemented by the Bayesian apparatus of PP, promise to deliver fine-grained pictures of how feelings like confusion, surprise, curiosity, boredom, insight, etc., are generated, evolve over time, and can be managed by the sort of designer environments we humans build and inhabit.…”

Section: Prospects For Psychology and Neuroscience In Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aesthetics and predictive processing: grounds and prospects of a fruitful encounter

Frascaroli,

Leder,

Brattico

et al. 2023

In the last few years, a remarkable convergence of interests and results has emerged between scholars interested in the arts and aesthetics from a variety of perspectives and cognitive scientists studying the mind and brain within the predictive processing (PP) framework. This convergence has so far proven fruitful for both sides: while PP is increasingly adopted as a framework for understanding aesthetic phenomena, the arts and aesthetics, examined under the lens of PP, are starting to be seen as important windows into our mental functioning. The result is a vast and fast-growing research programme that promises to deliver important insights into our aesthetic encounters as well as a wide range of psychological phenomena of general interest. Here, we present this developing research programme, describing its grounds and highlighting its prospects. We start by clarifying how the study of the arts and aesthetics encounters the PP picture of mental functioning (§1). We then go on to outline the prospects of this encounter for the fields involved: philosophy and history of art (§2), psychology of aesthetics and neuroaesthetics (§3) and psychology and neuroscience more generally (§4). The upshot is an ambitious but well-defined framework within which aesthetics and cognitive science can partner up to illuminate crucial aspects of the human mind. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives’.

A model of time-varying music engagement

Omigie,

Mencke

2023

Self Cite

The current paper offers a model of time-varying music engagement, defined as changes in curiosity, attention and positive valence, as music unfolds over time. First, we present research (including new data) showing that listeners tend to allocate attention to music in a manner that is guided by both features of the music and listeners' individual differences. Next, we review relevant predictive processing literature before using this body of work to inform our model. In brief, we propose that music engagement, over the course of an extended listening episode, may constitute several cycles of curiosity, attention and positive valence that are interspersed with moments of mind-wandering. Further, we suggest that refocusing on music after an episode of mind-wandering can be due to triggers in the music or, conversely, mental action that occurs when the listener realizes they are mind-wandering. Finally, we argue that factors that modulate both overall levels of music engagement and how it changes over time include music complexity, listener background and the listening context. Our paper highlights how music can be used to provide insights into the temporal dynamics of attention and into how curiosity might emerge in everyday contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives’.