Cognitive Models of Tonal Tension

We define tonal tension as the anticipation of a harmonic resolution following a sequence of tonal music. A large variety of models have been proposed in the literature, and conflicting results have been published. This paper gives an overview of the current models for tonal tension and discusses the main theoretical issues in research on tonal tension. Furthermore, it outlines an experiment that could settle one particular problem, namely the influence of exposure in the perception of tonal tension.