Table 3 Anticipation properties.

Subjectivity

Anticipation guides agents’ subjective cognitive processes. Agents may have different anticipations about the same event(s), due to differences in agents’ social backgrounds, experiences, and psychological factors (Jiang, 2008: 7, Torres-Martínez, 2024, 2025);

Intentionality

Anticipation is intentional and can be directed towards other agents, e.g. parents anticipating that their children want to study abroad, and children anticipating their parents’ wishes. Anticipation can thus be recursively intentional (Dunbar, 2011);

Dynamicity

Anticipation is dynamic. Agents change their anticipations as the environment and objects/events change over time, and as agents’ own acquisition of this information changes their own cognitive states (Huron, 2020);

Informativeness

Anticipation is informative. Agents’ anticipation is known information for themselves but may be new information for other agents (Cañal-Bruland & Mann, 2024);

Probabilistic Uncertainty

Anticipation is a subjective, probabilistic understanding of uncertainty. Research suggests that the brain generates anticipation(s) based on probability models, processing sensory information and updating beliefs about causes (Yang, 2021: 340). Anticipation thus appears to follow Bayesian probability principles (Hohwy, 2013);

Implicitness/Explicitness

Anticipation can be implicit or explicit. Implicit anticipation exists subconsciously in agents’ minds but may become explicit when agents exchange their anticipations in discourse (cf. Engel et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2021, 2022; Torres-Martínez, 2022a, b).