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Updated: May 20, 2026

fMRI Mapping of Brain Activity Associated with the Vocal Production of Consonant and Dissonant Intervals
Published on: May 23, 2017
Auditory expectation: the information dynamics of music perception and cognition
Marcus T Pearce1, Geraint A Wiggins
1Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture, Goldsmiths, University of London Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary, University of London, UK. marcus.pearce@eecs.qmul.ac.uk
Abstract:
Following in a psychological and musicological tradition beginning with Leonard Meyer, and continuing through David Huron, we present a functional, cognitive account of the phenomenon of expectation in music, grounded in computational, probabilistic modeling. We summarize a range of evidence for this approach, from psychology, neuroscience, musicology, linguistics, and creativity studies, and argue that simulating expectation is an important part of understanding a broad range of human faculties, in music and beyond.
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