Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation

David Huron

MIT Press (2006)

From the back cover:

Huron proposes 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). For real-world events, these five response systems typically produce a complex mixture of feelings. The book identifies some of the aesthetic possibilities afforded by expectation, and shows how common musical devices (such as syncopation, cadence, meter, tonality, and climax) exploit the psychological opportunities. The theory also provides new insights into the physiological psychology of awe, laughter, and spine-tingling chills. Huron 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.

Table of Contents

Here are abstracts of two careful, elaborate studies concerned specifically with Rand's theory of music:

“Con Molto Sentimento” by Marsha Familaro Enright

Objectivity (1995) Volume 2, Number 3, Pages 117–151

Why does man make music? How does it cause feelings? What is its biological function and evolutionary origin? What is the relation of music to language? Are there objects to which music refers?

Enright gives an overview of thinking on these questions from the Greeks to nineteenth-century philosophers and Helmholtz. She introduces modern theories of music and brings to bear modern research on music and the brain. She gives considerable attention to the theory of Manfred Clynes and the research of Robert Zatorre.

In her esthetics, Rand offered a hypothesis about how music relates to feeling and cognition. Enright uncovers a conflicting tendency in Rand’s account and proposes different ways in which it might be resolved, consistent with scientific findings.

(Marsha’s essay can be read at Objectivity Archive. Click on V2N3.)

“Music and Perceptual Cognition” by Roger E. Bissell

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (1999) Volume 1, Number 1, Pages 59-86

Bissell challenges Rand’s interpretation of the nature of musical perception. Abandoning her earlier Jamesian view of sensation and perception for the flawed Helmholtzian model, Rand overlooked the musical-literary analogy and its usefulness in understanding and evaluating musical experience. Using Rand’s analysis of esthetic “identification” and findings of psychophysiological research, Bissell aims to correct this error and to make a stronger case for the underlying unity of the arts.

(This abstract for Roger’s essay is from JARS V1N1, page 167. A link to the essay was provided in Joe’s starter-post above.)

Only a quibble, but have always had it - that is, the mis-understandings which inevitably come from the use in her definition of "re-creation"... properly, she meant NOT that it stemmed from a first creation [eg, implying a creator - which, sadly, is exactly what the word means], but rather that she was referring to "re-presentation", and as such wish she had used the latter word instead of the former... while "presentation" can imply someone who has put the presenting before you, it also and more oft means being in the sense of "...being there before your attention", that is as what is acrued to your experiencing reality, the consequence of your awareness...

Thoughts on this from anyone?

"The Art of Fiction" (which is not exactly a book but notes from an informal series of lectures) is quite good if you are a writer or enjoy reading fiction.

Grazie mille, bello!

Joe very good. Thank you. And good to see you here

Summer, make sure you read RM before WHAT ART IS, since the latter is a response to the former.

Eric, simple: it's one of the few serious books on the subject that make it into mainstream bookstores like Barnes and Noble. Actually, I was working at an independent bookstore when it first came out. There are hundreds of books about musicians, but very few about actual music. The Philadelphia Central Library does have a nice collection, though, with books going back to the 1800's. W

What's nice about Jourdain's book is that it is more current, more readible, and serves as a great synopsis of the arguments of those older books and compares the main ideas of the older books against each other, so it's a great starting point.

Hmmm....  I've not yet read The Romantic Manifesto or What Art Is.  Methinks it's time to visit Amazon.com and spend a little scratch...

I remember the first time that I read 'The Romantic Manifesto'. The book left me with a much more profound understanding and appreciation of the artistic medium of art. It was like a inspiring breath of fresh air. I've been in several bands and I live for music. Once it gets in your blood...JoeM, Robert Jourdain's book looks quite interesting. How did you come across it?