Surprising events trigger measurable brain activity and influence human behavior by affecting learning, memory, decision-making. Currently there is, however, no consensus on the definition of surprise. Here we identify 18 mathematical definitions surprise in a unifying framework. We first propose technical classification these into three groups based their dependence an agent’s belief, show how...

Abstract Lady Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine (1843) never refer to the concept of surprise. Having some pretension ‘originate’ something—unlike Engine—is neither necessary nor sufficient being able surprise someone. Turing nevertheless translates ‘this machine is incapable originating something’ in terms a hypothetical ‘computers cannot take us by surprise’ objection idea that ...

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of the notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of the cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of su...