David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006, 512 pp., ISBN 0262083450, (Hardcover)

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Pearce, Marcus T. and Müllensiefen, Daniel. 2008. David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006, 512 pp., ISBN 0262083450, (Hardcover). Musicae Scientiae, 12(1), pp. 158-168. ISSN 1029-8649 [Article]

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/102986490801200109

Abstract or Description

In the glossary to Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation by David Huron, the term sweet anticipation is defined as “the positive feelings that arise from conscious thought about some future event”. As such, the term constitutes a rather strange choice of title for a book that focuses to a large extent on unconscious processes involved in musical expectation. Presumably, the intention was to place emphasis on “positive feelings” since this account differs from most written by researchers in music cognition in terms of the prominence it gives to music’s ability to invoke pleasure. However, Huron’s approach is distinctive in other ways. The prominence given to psychological theories, models and methods as tools for understanding music will come as no surprise for those familiar with his field of research. But the emphasis on taking subjective musical experience seriously, modeling music perception as a process of (statistical) learning, examining music from wide range of cultures and understanding cognition in an evolutionary context represent characteristic hallmarks of this work. We shall return to these themes in more detail later on.

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Article

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https://doi.org/10.1177/102986490801200109