TY - JOUR

T1 - The sweet spot between predictability and surprise: Musical groove in brain, body, and social interactions

AU - Stupacher, Jan

AU - Matthews, Tomas Edward

AU - Pando-Naude, Victor

AU - Foster Vander Elst, Olivia

AU - Vuust, Peter

N1 - Funding Information: The Center for Music in the Brain is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF 117). JS was supported by an Erwin Schrödinger fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (J-4288). This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (J-4288). Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 Stupacher, Matthews, Pando-Naude, Foster Vander Elst and Vuust.

PY - 2022/8

Y1 - 2022/8

N2 - Groove—defined as the pleasurable urge to move to a rhythm—depends on a fine-tuned interplay between predictability arising from repetitive rhythmic patterns, and surprise arising from rhythmic deviations, for example in the form of syncopation. The perfect balance between predictability and surprise is commonly found in rhythmic patterns with a moderate level of rhythmic complexity and represents the sweet spot of the groove experience. In contrast, rhythms with low or high complexity are usually associated with a weaker experience of groove because they are too boring to be engaging or too complex to be interpreted, respectively. Consequently, the relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove experience can be described by an inverted U-shaped function. We interpret this inverted U shape in light of the theory of predictive processing and provide perspectives on how rhythmic complexity and groove can help us to understand the underlying neural mechanisms linking temporal predictions, movement, and reward. A better understanding of these mechanisms can guide future approaches to improve treatments for patients with motor impairments, such as Parkinson’s disease, and to investigate prosocial aspects of interpersonal interactions that feature music, such as dancing. Finally, we present some open questions and ideas for future research.

AB - Groove—defined as the pleasurable urge to move to a rhythm—depends on a fine-tuned interplay between predictability arising from repetitive rhythmic patterns, and surprise arising from rhythmic deviations, for example in the form of syncopation. The perfect balance between predictability and surprise is commonly found in rhythmic patterns with a moderate level of rhythmic complexity and represents the sweet spot of the groove experience. In contrast, rhythms with low or high complexity are usually associated with a weaker experience of groove because they are too boring to be engaging or too complex to be interpreted, respectively. Consequently, the relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove experience can be described by an inverted U-shaped function. We interpret this inverted U shape in light of the theory of predictive processing and provide perspectives on how rhythmic complexity and groove can help us to understand the underlying neural mechanisms linking temporal predictions, movement, and reward. A better understanding of these mechanisms can guide future approaches to improve treatments for patients with motor impairments, such as Parkinson’s disease, and to investigate prosocial aspects of interpersonal interactions that feature music, such as dancing. Finally, we present some open questions and ideas for future research.

KW - dance

KW - entrainment

KW - movement

KW - music

KW - Parkinson’s

KW - predictive coding

KW - rhythm

KW - syncopation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136851094&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906190

DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906190

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36017431

AN - SCOPUS:85136851094

VL - 13

JO - Frontiers in Psychology

JF - Frontiers in Psychology

SN - 1664-1078

M1 - 906190

ER -