The unexpected creates reward when listening to music

If you love it when a musician strikes that unexpected but perfect chord, you are not alone. New research shows the musically unexpected activates the reward centre of our brains, and makes us learn about the music as we listen.

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Maybe all the perception senses have a reward system?

Vision = Geometry aesthetics = Beauty = reward
Food = Taste = sweets = reward
Hearing = music = reward
Smell = agreeable = reward
Feeling = Smooth textures = Reward

How did senses evolve?

vision = light waves
hearing = radio waves
taste = ? molecules in matter
smell = ? molecules in the atmoshpre
feeling = Gravity

Tau.Neutrino said:

The unexpected creates reward when listening to music

If you love it when a musician strikes that unexpected but perfect chord, you are not alone. New research shows the musically unexpected activates the reward centre of our brains, and makes us learn about the music as we listen.

more…

jacqueline du pre.

Everything she played on cello was both unexpected and inevitable.

Mrs m has something not a similar talent when improvising. Listening, you would swear that what she’s playing is the original version. But it isn’t, it’s better.

Tau.Neutrino said:

How did senses evolve?

vision = light waves
hearing = radio waves
taste = ? molecules in matter
smell = ? molecules in the atmoshpre
feeling = Gravity

Touch came first, as single cells bumped up against things.
Taste almost simultaneously, as single cells decided what was and was not edible.
Smell is detection of molecules that are are not food or danger directly but are emitted by food or danger.

Vision, is a reaction to molecules absorbing light, as an easier way to pump ions across membranes, so storing energy formulated release.

Sound. I haven’t given that much thought. How far down the scale of evolution do we have to go before organisms couldn’t hear? Can plants hear?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Maybe all the perception senses have a reward system?

Vision = Geometry aesthetics = Beauty = reward
Food = Taste = sweets = reward
Hearing = music = reward
Smell = agreeable = reward
Feeling = Smooth textures = Reward

That makes sense.

Tau.Neutrino said:

The unexpected creates reward when listening to music

If you love it when a musician strikes that unexpected but perfect chord, you are not alone. New research shows the musically unexpected activates the reward centre of our brains, and makes us learn about the music as we listen.

more…

But then, if that is true, why …

Why does music contain so many repeats?

Could the opposite be true, that the expected creates rewards when listening to music?