 One framework, or model, for understanding what is done when a spectator grasps or understands a performance might be supplied by using signaling theory, much as that theory has been developed as a model for understanding social relations and social norms (Skyrms 2010; Wagner 2015, and see the entry on  social norms).  The rough idea is that a sender, in this case a performer, signals a content to a receiver, the spectator, a content which the spectator cannot see at the moment (e.g., how the performance will go, what to expect next, what kind of thing to expect). And then the receiver performs some action—and indeed that action can be as minimal as theatrical spectators’ actions often are—which indicates to the performer whether or not they have understood the signal. Perhaps unlike standard signaling games, the relevant actions in this case are reasoned to by the spectators from the data they are given in the performance. Accordingly, this enhanced model would require spectators to update their expectations upon being presented with new signals, or new data (Perfors et al. 2011). And because the same data can be used to increase one’s credence in an expectation and to help one determine the right category in which to place one’s expectations, this model would also allow for prior knowledge to play the kind of role in the understanding of a performance that seems appropriate (Tenenbaum et al. 2011). It would allow for both “bottom up” and “top down” guidance of perception and reception that comports well with a priori as well as empirical reasoning about theatrical and other kinds of perception and reception. This would include event-segmentation in narrative understanding and scene gist detection, as two fairly low-level examples (Zacks et al. 2007; Larson and Loschky 2009). It would also include such higher levels examples as recognition of styles and genres in performance (Walton 1970; Saltz 2006; Liao and Protasi 2013).