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This week, a guest blog from excellent Dubai-based improviser, Peter Wilson.

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Imagine, if you will, a monkey. Whom we shall call Sebastian.

And imagine that you have gently inserted a probe into Sebastian’s brain that can measure dopamine levels. And imagine that you’re feeding him his favourite juice.

We find that Sebastian’s dopamine level will spike when he gets the lovely juice. Or if you routinely flash a light before delivering the juice, he learns to expect the treat, and his dopamine spikes with the light and no longer with the juice.

If you flash a light and don’t deliver any juice, or deliver something other than juice, he gets livid. Far angrier than if you hadn’t flashed a light at all. You’ve let him down.

But most importantly, if you flash the light and deliver him a different kind of still lovely juice, he gets two peaks of dopamine, once with the setting of his expectation, and once when his expectation is fully met, but in a surprising but pleasant way. That’s two dopamine hits for the price of one bit of juice.

The brain is a prediction engine, and evolution is rewarding Sebastian’s ability to predict correctly. But the best way to predict things accurately is to stay in bed all day, so evolution also wants to reward the ability to benefit from new things. So pleasant surprises are even more rewarding than predictable stability.

In case you think that I’ve made all this up, this has all been studied by the brilliant musician and neuroscientist Peter Vuust.  Peter studies the effect of music on the brain, and argues that music’s ability to be unpredictably predictable is what gives it universal appeal, and the potential for some dopamine double dipping. He studies people’s responses to a variety of rhythms and melodies by playing them sounds of increasing complexity.  At one end of the spectrum imagine one note played repeatedly in 4/4 time, or anything by Status Quo. Boring. At the other end of the spectrum imagine a very complex, syncopated rhythm that’s unpredictable to anyone but a virtuoso. Or anything by King Crimson. Neither is appealing. But somewhere in the middle there is something that is complex enough to be interesting, but simple enough to be predictable. That’s the sweet spot.

Which brings us to improv. We’ve all heard Keith Johnstone’s advice to be boring, be obvious, stay within the circle of expectations. I never quite understood it until the lovely Steve Roe at Hoopla explained it to me. ‘Imagine the audience offer is “a bar”. Great! That could be a Wild West bar or a Wall Street cocktail bar or the bar in Star Wars. Anything. Just don’t go for “iron bar”. At best you’ll get a cheap laugh and it will get you nowhere.’ I think now I get why all that makes sense.

So meet expectations, but in a surprising way. Your inner monkey will thank you.

<aside> 💡 Hey, my name’s Chris Mead. I write an article about improv almost every week. You can get the latest in your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter. Or check out the archive.

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