Interactive intelligence: behaviour-based AI, musical HCI and the Turing Test

The field of behaviour-based artificial intelligence (AI), with its roots in the robotics research of Rodney Brooks, is not predominantly tied to linguistic interaction in the sense of the classic Turing test (or, "imitation game"). Yet, it is worth noting, both are centred on a behavioural model of intelligence. Similarly, there is no intrinsic connection between musical AI and the language-based Turing test, though there have been many attempts to forge connections between them. Nonetheless, there are aspects of musical AI and the Turing test that can be considered in the context of non-language-based interactive environments–-in particular, when dealing with real-time musical AI, especially interactive improvisation software. This paper draws out the threads of intentional agency and human indistinguishability from Turing’s original 1950 characterisation of AI. On the basis of this distinction, it considers different approaches to musical AI. In doing so, it highlights possibilities for non-hierarchical interplay between human and computer agents

Experimental Approaches to the Composition of Interactive Video Game Music

This project explores experimental approaches and strategies to the composition of interactive music for the medium of video games. Whilst music in video games has not enjoyed the technological progress that other aspects of the software have received, budgets expand and incomes from releases grow. Music is now arguably less interactive than it was in the 1990’s, and whilst graphics occupy large amounts of resources and development time, audio does not garner the same attention. This portfolio develops strategies and audio engines, creating music using the techniques of aleatoric composition, real-time remixing of existing work, and generative synthesisers. The project created music for three ‘open-form’ games : an example of the racing genre (Kart Racing Pro); an arena-based first-person shooter (Counter-Strike : Source); and a real-time strategy title (0 A.D.). These games represent a cross-section of ‘sandbox’- type games on the market, as well as all being examples of games with open-ended or open-source code

A Tablet-Based Assessment of Rhythmic Ability.

The exponential rise in use of mobile consumer electronics has presented a great potential for research to be conducted remotely, with participants numbering several orders of magnitude greater than a typical research paradigm. Here, we attempt to demonstrate the validity and reliability of using a consumer game-engine to create software presented on a mobile tablet to assess sensorimotor synchronization, a proxy of rhythmic ability. Our goal was to ascertain whether previously observed research results can be replicated, rather than assess whether a mobile tablet achieves comparable performance to a desktop computer. To achieve this, younger (aged 18-35 years) and older (aged 60-80 years) adult musicians and non-musicians were recruited to play a custom-designed sensorimotor synchronization assessment on a mobile tablet in a controlled laboratory environment. To assess reliability, participants performed the assessment twice, separated by a week, and an intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated. Results supported the validity of this approach to assessing rhythmic abilities by replicating previously observed results. Specifically, musicians performed better than non-musicians, and younger adults performed better than older adults. Participants also performed best when the tempo was in the range of previously-identified preferred tempos, when the stimuli included both audio and visual information, and when synchronizing on-beat compared to off-beat or continuation (self-paced) synchronization. Additionally, high ICC values (>0.75) suggested excellent test-retest reliability. Together, these results support the notion that consumer electronics running software built with a game engine may serve as a valuable resource for remote, mobile-based data collection of rhythmic abilities

Harmony and Technology Enhanced Learning

New technologies offer rich opportunities to support education in harmony. In this chapter we consider theoretical perspectives and underlying principles behind technologies for learning and teaching harmony. Such perspectives help in matching existing and future technologies to educational purposes, and to inspire the creative re-appropriation of technologies

Interactive Spaces. Models and Algorithms for Reality-based Music Applications

Reality-based interfaces have the property of linking the user's physical space with the computer digital content, bringing in intuition, plasticity and expressiveness. Moreover, applications designed upon motion and gesture tracking technologies involve a lot of psychological features, like space cognition and implicit knowledge. All these elements are the background of three presented music applications, employing the characteristics of three different interactive spaces: a user centered three dimensional space, a floor bi-dimensional camera space, and a small sensor centered three dimensional space. The basic idea is to deploy the application's spatial properties in order to convey some musical knowledge, allowing the users to act inside the designed space and to learn through it in an enactive way

Empirical modelling principles to support learning in a cultural context

Much research on pedagogy stresses the need for a broad perspective on learning. Such a perspective might take account (for instance) of the experience that informs knowledge and understanding [Tur91], the situation in which the learning activity takes place [Lav88], and the influence of multiple intelligences [Gar83]. Educational technology appears to hold great promise in this connection. Computer-related technologies such as new media, the internet, virtual reality and brain-mediated communication afford access to a range of learning resources that grows ever wider in its scope and supports ever more sophisticated interactions. Whether educational technology is fulfilling its potential in broadening the horizons for learning activity is more controversial. Though some see the successful development of radically new educational resources as merely a matter of time, investment and engineering, there are also many critics of the trends in computer-based learning who see little evidence of the greater degree of human engagement to which new technologies aspire [Tal95]. This paper reviews the potential application to educational technology of principles and tools for computer-based modelling that have been developed under the auspices of the Empirical Modelling (EM) project at Warwick [EMweb]. This theme was first addressed at length in a previous paper [Bey97], and is here revisited in the light of new practical developments in EM both in respect of tools and of model-building that has been targetted at education at various levels. Our central thesis is that the problems of educational technology stem from the limitations of current conceptual frameworks and tool support for the essential cognitive model building activity, and that tackling these problems requires a radical shift in philosophical perspective on the nature and role of empirical knowledge that has significant practical implications. The paper is in two main sections. The first discusses the limitations of the classical computer science perspective where educational technology to support situated learning is concerned, and relates the learning activities that are most closely associated with a cultural context to the empiricist perspective on learning introduced in [Bey97]. The second outlines the principles of EM and describes and illustrates features of its practical application that are particularly well-suited to learning in a cultural setting

Dynamic mapping strategies for interactive art installations: an embodied combined HCI HRI HHI approach

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for dealing with the paradigm of interactivity in new media art, and how the broad use of the term in different research fields can lead to some misunderstandings. The paper addresses a conceptual view on how we can implement interaction in new media art from an embodied approach that unites views from HCI, HRI and HHI. The focus is on an intuitive mapping of a multitude of sensor data and to extend upon this using the paradigm of (1) finite state machines (FSM) to address dynamic mapping strategies, (2) mediality to address aisthesis and (3) embodiment to address valid mapping strategies originated from natural body movements. The theory put forward is illustrated by a case study