Perceptual Entertainment
For the purpose of this article I define Perceptual Entertainment to be any form of entertainment where the person being entertained derives their enjoyment from the perception of something, and the person does not actually do anything other than pay attention to the thing they are perceiving.
Most perceptual entertainment consists of something that is seen or something that is heard, or both.
Types of perceptual entertainment include:
- Films & Television
- Books
- Art
- Theatre
- Circus
- Magic Shows
- Spectator Sports
- Music
Other than music, most of these have a strong visual component, although some of them can be provided purely in audio form – for example even a book can be consumed as an audio book. (And before they invented television, theatre on the radio was a thing.)
Most forms of perceptual entertainment provide a representation or simulation of something that is real or something that could be real, and the entertainment is a function of the entertainee’s perception and consequent understanding of that thing.
A movie or television program is a display on a screen which simulates the appearance of events and scenarios, either real or fictional, so that those watching the screen in effect “see” those real or fictional events and scenarios as they watch the screen.
A book is just a written description (assuming it’s not a picture book) – but it can be considered a form of perceptual entertainment because part of our response to spoken (or written) language is to generate some kind of internal perception of the things being spoken about.
Magic is a special type of perceptual entertainment, because the audience can be right there, and what they see is real, but the magician creates illusions of things that are not real, so it is as if the audience is perceiving those things that are not real.
Music, and how it is different
Music is a bit different from other types of perceptual entertainment, because, music is not a representation or simulation of something else. Music is just music – whatever that might be.
Also, music can be something that is added to other types of entertainment, with film scores being a major example – to the extent that it is very unusual for a fictional film not to have music in it. In effect music can alter, in some manner, our emotional responses to other things that we perceive.
The implication is that it is not so much the perception of music that is entertaining, but rather how the perception of music can alter our perception of something else, especially if that something else is a fictional representation of some kind.
Novelty and Repetition
With most forms of perceptual entertainment, novelty is a significant factor in the value of the entertainment to the entertainee, and in many cases it is an essential factor.
A consequence of this is that most items of entertainment are only deliberately consumed once by the consumer.
Sometimes people do consume the same item more than once, for example they may watch a favourite film more than once. (Author note: personally I am not one of those people.)
But the amount of such repetition in practice is fairly limited.
With music the situation is reversed – it is quite normal to listen to a favourite item of music more than once – indeed much more than once.
With a sufficient degree of repetition, even a favourite item of music can become boring, but quite a lot repetition is required to make that happen.
One illustration of this difference is how we normally talk about whether or not we have previously experienced an item of entertainment.
I might suggest to a friend that we go see such-and-such-a-movie, and my friend might reply, “Oh I’ve already seen that movie”.
In a different context, I might suggest to someone that I will play such-and-such-a-song.
It would not make so much sense for that person to say “Oh I’ve already heard that song”, as if to say “I’ve already heard that song so I don’t want to hear it again”.
A more likely response would be “Oooh I like that song”, or, “I don’t really like that song”. If indeed they haven’t heard that song ever before, they wouldn’t be able to offer an opinion about whether they want to hear it – the most they could say would be “OK play the song and I’ll see if I like it”.
The overall point being that any decision to listen to a particular item of music is usually not primarily based on whether you have heard it once already.
The implication is that novelty is not an essential factor in the enjoyment of music.
Theoretical Implications
The fact that music is something that we usually want to listen to more than once might not seem to be of any great significance.
However, there are those who seriously advance theories about music perception which attempt to explain our response to music in terms of expectations and the predictability or not of the sounds of a musical item.
A reasonable prediction to make from such a theory is that people would not enjoy listening to music that they have heard many times before, because that music is now completely predictable and the listener knows exactly what to expect when they listen to it yet again.
This prediction totally fails, because many people do listen to the same items of music over and over again, and the most straightforward conclusion one can make is that all such theories are simply wrong.