Auditory and reward structures reflect the pleasure of musical expectancies during naturalistic listening.

ABSTRACT: Enjoying music consistently engages key structures of the neural auditory and reward systems such as the right superior temporal gyrus (R STG) and ventral striatum (VS). Expectations seem to play a central role in this effect, as preferences reliably vary according to listeners' uncertainty about the musical future and surprise about the musical past. Accordingly, VS activity reflects the pleasure of musical surprise, and exhibits stronger correlations with R STG activity as pleasure grows. Yet the reward value of musical surprise - and thus the reason for these surprises engaging the reward system - remains an open question. Recent models of predictive neural processing and learning suggest that forming, testing, and updating hypotheses about one's environment may be intrinsically rewardi

SUBMITTER: Gold BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10625409 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature