Uncertainty and Surprise Jointly Predict Musical Pleasure and Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Auditory Cortex Activity

Highlights

• Musical pleasure depends on prospective and retrospective states of expectation

• A machine-learning model quantified the uncertainty and surprise of pop song chords

• Chords with low uncertainty and high surprise, and vice versa, evoked high pleasure

• Joint effects of uncertainty and surprise found in the amygdala and auditory cortex