Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation

I chose this text by David Huron for my book review. Sweet Anticipation is an empirically informed and statistically based work detailing Huron’s psychological theory of expectation. This book is a 462-page analysis of the phenomenon of musical expectation, which Huron grounds in psychological, biological, and evolutionary roots. It is a natural progression built on his experimental efforts to understand how music evokes emotions. Huron breaks his work down into 17 chapters. He provides an abundance of footnotes (28 pages), a 14-page glossary, 25 pages of references, and a 13-page index and he links the notated music examples of this book to his website. Huron defines anticipation as, “the subjective experience accompanying a strong expectation that a particular event will occur; also referred to as the feeling of anticipation” and “ in Western music theory, a type of melodic embellishment in which an expected note is immediately preceded by the same pitch.” He relates this to premonition. This book is targeted for readers interested in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, as well as in music.

Huron calls his general theory of expectation the ITPRA theory. ITPRA stands for his five categories of expectation responses: imagination, tension, prediction, reaction and appraisal. Huron posits that implicit, statistical expectations about music are directly linked to emotional response to music because they trigger basic neurobiological responses. Huron grounds his ITPRA theory in evolutionary, musicological, biological, and psychological theories.

In ITPRA, Huron suggests that an individual’s expectations about music tap into the same neural substrates as anticipation in general. Huron posits that emotions evoked by expectation involve five functionally distinct response systems: reaction responses (which engage defensive reflexes); tension responses (where uncertainty leads to stress); prediction responses (which reward accurate prediction); imagination responses (which facilitate deferred gratification); and appraisal responses (which occur after conscious thought is engaged).

According to Huron, these five response systems typically produce a complex mixture of feelings in real-world events and they contribute to the human emotional response to music. Pre-outcome responses (feelings that occur prior to an expected / unexpected event) relate to the anticipation of an event, they are comprised of imagination and tension responses. Imagining future events has emotional and intellectual aspects; the emotional aspect is designed to spur us to action. The imagination response contemplates potential future states and acts in ways that make those states more likely if they are positive, and less likely if they are negative. Imagining an outcome is a principal motivator of behavior. Without the imagination process, individuals would fail to take steps to avoid negative outcomes. Evidence suggests that imagination response induces actual emotional states while retaining awareness that the event that would lead to that state has not actually occurred.

The uncertainty of future events/experiences is an important element of anticipation, as are the knowledge of likely outcomes and their valence. Feeling uncertain about the immediate future causes Tension, which galvanizes flight, fight, or freeze - survival responses in anticipation of future events. The tension response is a more immediate physiological preparation for an imminent event and involves changes in arousal. The tension response is activated immediately before an anticipated moment of outcome, and adjusts the level of arousal and attention according to the degree of uncertainty surrounding the outcome, the significance of potential outcomes, and the estimated time before the outcome occurs.

Prediction, Reaction, and Appraisal are post-outcome responses - the three expectation processes. They are related to the outcome of events. Huron believes that chemicals in the brain are released that positively reinforce correct predictions about events and negatively reinforce incorrect predictions. He offers two separate systems of appraising events – an immediate emotional reaction process that automatically assumes the worst possible outcome based on schematic knowledge, and a slower, but more accurate cognitive process that appraises the valance and the importance of events. Working in tandem with the earlier immediate reaction process, cognitive appraisal dilutes the earlier emotional response if the evidence that earlier response was inappropriate. Cognitive appraisal of an experienced event may help avoid the possibility of being subjected to similar detrimental events in the future. Prediction responses are transient states of reward or punishment that arise in response to the accuracy of expectation. Accurate expectations are rewarded by positively-valence emotional responses, and inaccurate expectations are punished by negatively-valenced emotional responses.

Both the reaction and appraisal responses are emotional states that arise from assessments of the event itself independent of whether that event was anticipated. The reaction response is a rapid process that occurs automatically and preattentively and activates bodily actions and / or visceral responses. Reaction responses are knee-jerk reactions but are not always instinctive reflexes; they can also be learned. Appraisal responses are more considered and conscious assessments of an outcome, and need not be compatible with the reaction response.

The five processes of ITPRA prepare biologically adaptive behavioral responses that allow organisms to be optimally prepared for dangerous occurrences in the environment. Huron theorizes that musical expectations appropriate these five biologically adaptive processes, thereby producing a complex mix of feelings. He traces the psychology of expectations from the patterns of the physical/cultural world through imperfectly learned heuristics used to predict that world to the phenomenal qualia we experienced as we apprehend the world.

I found Huron’s proposals for expectancy mechanisms and their possible evolutionary origin in harmony with my own thoughts on the subject. This added to my interest in, and enjoyment of, this work. I cannot imagine it making the New York Times Bestseller List like Levitin’s This is Your Brain on Music. The nonmusician chapters were not difficult to read, but required a certain dedication and level of attentiveness to follow his thinking. His glossary and website were very important to the quality of my understanding of the musical and cognitive components of this work. I found similarities between Huron and Davies’ writing style. They both give numerous examples to illustrate their thought processes, they both restate their important points, and they both practice summarizing as a writing technique. But I believe their books were written for different audiences. Huron’s book is more technical, more evidentiary based, and supplies more empirically standardized charts, graphs, and musical notation than Davies. I would consider his overabundance of footnotes as the biggest detraction to reading this book. While they are wonderful for research purposes, they were an interruption to the flow of my reading experience, especially when I found only a citation to the reference.

Music as Play

Watching the video of Michel Camilo and his trio perform today in class, I was struck by how much enjoyment these musicians derived from their labors. We don't talk about music labor, or music as work. We play music.

Watching the expressions on their faces as they related to each other, I had the feeling that they were making fun more than they were making music. Observing their interactions during their performance, I had the sense that the process of creating music had, for them, also created community. It seemed to me, that for them, the activity of playing music together had created a bond of comradeship in some uniquely masculine form. It felt foreign. I couldn't quite grasp it. I wondered if it was a gender difference. I noticed it strangeness, but I wasn't concerned by it because even though I couldn't catalog it, it felt both positive and natural.

Their performance left me with a sense of the power music has to create cohesiveness, to create community. It strengthened my belief that music making first served some innately biological necessary evolutionary function. Clearly, some music still has the power to do that for us.

Response to Keane’s Question: Is all art derived from creative introspection and subsequent realization?

I agree that how we define art and creativity is essential for a determination of relational or independent properties. I think art minimally must reflect the incorporeal spark of its creator’s highest nature. I believe great art is the co-creative product of the mind/body/essence of the corporeal being and their environment, and if they are fortunate, of the essence of their environment.

I do not think that it is a necessary condition that all art must be derived from creative introspection and subsequent realization.

I would provide the example of arranging items found in nature to create a work of art. As beings driven to categorize the environment, we could arrange wild flowers, driftwood, rocks, shells, fungi, birds’ nests, dried leaves, moss, or any combination of myriad non-anthropogenically created objects from creative introspection and subsequent realization into works of art. But I also think it is possible to arrange those same myriad found objects by releasing one’s self from one’s corporeal constrictions and projecting one’s self relationally to said found objects. I believe it is possible for some beings, at sometimes, to be the vehicle collaborating with the less mobile, to form a work of art. I think this relational reforming can be possible with some manmade objects as well.

The question is who/what/which ones are truly organizing the form.

Response to Keane’s Question: Are there accidents that we might consider art?

There are accidents that we might consider art. Here, I would define accident as that which results from something other than a consciously aware process. A thinking creative being might produce a work of art from an unconscious or accidental process. An artist might accidentally smudge their artwork. A glassblower, potter, or metal smith might unintentionally alter the form of their piece, a composer might hit an unintended key or chord. These artists, and their audiences, could realize that their accidents resulted in artworks that were superior to their imagined, intended pieces.

A lightening strike, a flood, a landslide, a meteor, a wind storm, a blizzard, an ice storm, even a fire, are all examples of agents that have the ability to act upon the environment accidentally, but in such a manner that they could produce what we would consider spectacular works of art.

So my question is: Do you have to be a thinking, creative, sentient being to create art? Is art necessarily created solely by the agency of a living, or sentient actor? Or is art necessarily dependent upon the passive recipient of its form? Or can it be either? Again, what is art? Who defines what is art? Who defines who/what is an artist, or an agent of artistic expression. This conversation reminds me of Davies' dilemma regarding music's capacity to express emotions.

Ah, philosophy.

Response to Emily’s Question

“If you think animals are "persons", do you also consider human fetuses "persons"? What about animal eggs? Where do you draw the line?”

I consider all sentient life forms as persons. I consider embryonic forms of sentient life in one of their viable stages of evolution from embryo to self-existence as a member of their particular species also as persons.

I do not consider infertile eggs as “persons” because their particular inviable embryonic state is incapable of ever developing into a member of their species.

For me, the crux of the matter is Emily’s question, “Where do you draw the line?” I have no satisfactory answer to this conundrum, only musings. I believe the answer lies in a philosophy of a value-based hierarchy of determinants.

I believe all life forms, by nature of their very existence, deserve our respect and the right not to be abused. Yet I will kill mosquitoes, deer flies, black flies, ticks, fleas, or any other insects I find biting me, or one of my friends, or animals. I feel justified in taking the life of an insect that I believe is endangering them or me. I do not feel justified in taking the life of bees or bugs that have accidently wandered from their normal outside habitat into my home habitat, because I do not perceive their co-occupying our home as a deliberate intent on their part to do us harm. Nor do I perceive their potential to harm us, should they bite us, as significant.

Were I to think rationally about the subject, I would have to admit that the nation states of mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies, black flies, ticks, fleas, and other biting insects are not at war with me and mine. They simply require the blood of other living beings in order for them and their offspring to survive. Their predation on us is the result of a natural evolutionary pattern that was created during the co-evolution of our species on this planet. Since our species continue sharing habitat, I need to consider that we non-insectivorous animals may be receiving some benefit from the relationship. However, I do not feel sympathy or empathy for any of them, or theirs, and referring to their progeny as offspring caused me to cringe. I do not consider them sentient beings, as I do butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, or bumblebees. I do not find them or their progeny cute, cuddly, or capable of inspiring any stirrings within me to grant them moral patient status, or honorary person status.

Evidently, for me, where I draw the line depends on what my relationship is with the living being. My relationship with them is dependent on my aesthetic perception of them and my belief that they are, or are not, predisposed to cause harm to me or others for whom I care. I am forced to conclude that my personal value-based hierarchy of determinant philosophy suffers a speciesist as well as aesthetic point of view.

MY QUESTIONS:
Is it unethical to view species as deserving (or undeserving) of our protection based on our aesthetic perceptions of them?
Why are we as a species prone to protect butterflies and eradicate fleas?
Is it ethical to seek to eliminate species because they have the potential to harm us or species we value?