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Computational Creativity from a Model of Music Cognition

USC VSoE ISE SeminarWHAT: Computational Creativity from a Model of Music CognitionWHO: Geraint Wiggins, Professor of Computational Creativity, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths' CollegeWHEN: Thursday, August 19, 2010, 3:30PM - 4:50PMWHERE: EEB 248Abstract: This talk is about computational modeling of a process of musical composition, based on a cognitive model of human behaviour. The idea is to try to study not only the requirements for a computer system which is capable of musical composition, but also to relate it to human behaviour during the same process, so that it may, perhaps, work in the same way as a human composer, but also so that it may, more likely, help us understand how human composers work. We take a purist approach to our modeling: we are aiming, ultimately, at a computer system which we can claim to be creative. Therefore, we must address in advance the criticism that usually arises in these circumstances: "a computer can't be creative because it can only do what it has explicitly been programmed to do". This argument does not hold,because, with the advent of machine learning, it is no longer true that a computer is limited to what its programmer explicitly tells it, especially in a relatively unsupervised learning task like composition (as compared with the usually-supervised task of learning, say, the piano). Thus, a creative system based on unsupervised machine learning can, in principle, be given credit for creative output, much as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is deemed the creator of The Magic Flute, and not Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang's father, teacher and de facto agent. Because music is a very complex phenomenon, we focus on a relatively simple aspect, which is relatively easy to isolate from the many other aspects of music: tonal melody. In order to compose music, one normally needs to learn about it by hearing it, so we begin with a perceptual model, which has proven capable of simulating relevant aspects of human listening behaviour better than any other in the literature. We also consider the application of this model to a different task, musical phras segmentation, because doing so adds weight to its status as a good, if preliminary, model of human cognition. We then consider using this model to generate tonal melodies, and show how one might go about evaluating the resulting model of composition scientifically. We place the discussion in the context of current models of creative cognition.Biography: Geraint A. Wiggins has an MA from the University of Cambridge, in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, and PhDs from the University of Edinburgh, in Artificial Intelligence and in Musical Composition. He works in the Department of Computing and directs the Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he holds the Chair of Computational Creativity and leads the Intelligent Sound and MusicSystems (ISMS) research group. His research interests cover a wide range, centred around computational cognitive modeling of creative behaviour, particularly in the context of music, the aim being to understand better how human creativity arises, both in evolutionary and mechanistic terms, and to begin to understand how it works, on an individual basis. Geraint has published and co-published several practical and theoretical papers on computational creativity, and was responsible for the instigation of one of the workshop series (under the aegis of the AISB convention) which eventually merged to form the International Conference on Computational Creativity. He recently co-edited (with Irène Deliège) the first ever collection of papers dedicated to the cognitive psychology of musical creativity, Musical Creativity: Current Research in Theory and Practice (Psychology Press). He is an Associate Editor of Musicae Scientiae, the journal of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, and a Consulting Editor of Music Perception, its North American counterpart. From 2000-2004, he was chair of AISB, the UK learned society for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science.Host: Prof. Elaine Chew

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Georgia Lum