Information as a Measure of the Experience of Music

Auditory Expectation: The Information Dynamics of Music Perception and Cognition

“…However, a listener’s perception (e.g., of the first note) cannot be influenced by music she has not yet heard (e.g., the last note), so her knowledge and expectation changes with each new note (Meyer, 1957). To address this, Coons and Kraehenbuehl calculated dynamic measures of information (predictive failure) in a sequence (Coons & Kraehenbueh, l958; Kraehenbuehl & Coons, 1959). However, it remains unclear whether the method could be implemented and generalized beyond their simple examples.…”

Motivational problems raised by exploratory and epistemic behavior.

“…The sequence of arousal-increasing and arousal-decreasing devices and the psychological nature of the interaction between them are most evident in the temporal arts of music and literature, and the most thoroughgoing attempts to analyze them have been applied to music in particular [47,107,1291. But there are obvious isomorphisms between the principles of composition and structural artifices that are found in the temporal arts and those that are found in the spatially organized visual arts.…”

Towards Greater Objectivity in Music Theory: Information-Dynamic Analysis of Minimalist Music

“…However a listener's perception (e.g., of the first note in the sample) cannot be influenced by music the listener has not yet heard (e.g., the last note in the sample) and their state of knowledge and expectation will change dynamically as each note in the music is experienced (Meyer, 1957). In order to address concerns such as these, Coons and Kraehenbuehl developed a system of calculating dynamic measures of information (predictive failure) in a sequence (Coons & Kraehenbuehl, 1958;Kraehenbuehl & Coons, 1959). However, it remains unclear whether the method could be computationally implemented and its application generalised beyond the simple examples given.…”