Conclusion (I)



  • evolved cognitive mechanisms exist to form expectations about future stimuli

  • accurate expectations facilitate action and perception

  • expectations are based on probabilities of past events

  • common structures in music lead to pertinent expectations; these include:

    • pitch expectations (learned AP)

    • scale-degree expectations (key-profile schemas)

    • initial scale-degree expectations (hear as "fah")

    • pitch proximity (characteristic of auditory streams)

    • central pitch tendency (typical of physical sound sources)

    • metric hierarchy ("aiming attention in time")

    • rhythmic genres (sciciliano, bosa nova, etc.)