The Responsibility Problem in Neural Networks with Unordered Targets

We discuss the discontinuities that arise when mapping unordered objects to neural network outputs of fixed permutation, referred to as the responsibility problem. Prior work has proved the existence of the issue by identifying a single discontinuity. Here, we show that discontinuities under such models are uncountably infinite, motivating further research into neural networks for unordered data.Comment: Accepted for TinyPaper archival at ICLR 2023: https://openreview.net/forum?id=jd7Hy1jRiv

Interactive Neural Resonators

In this work, we propose a method for the controllable synthesis of real-time contact sounds using neural resonators. Previous works have used physically inspired statistical methods and physical modelling for object materials and excitation signals. Our method incorporates differentiable second-order resonators and estimates their coefficients using a neural network that is conditioned on physical parameters. This allows for interactive dynamic control and the generation of novel sounds in an intuitive manner. We demonstrate the practical implementation of our method and explore its potential creative applications

Composer Style-specific Symbolic Music Generation Using Vector Quantized Discrete Diffusion Models

Emerging Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPM) have become increasingly utilised because of promising results they have achieved in diverse generative tasks with continuous data, such as image and sound synthesis. Nonetheless, the success of diffusion models has not been fully extended to discrete symbolic music. We propose to combine a vector quantized variational autoencoder (VQ-VAE) and discrete diffusion models for the generation of symbolic music with desired composer styles. The trained VQ-VAE can represent symbolic music as a sequence of indexes that correspond to specific entries in a learned codebook. Subsequently, a discrete diffusion model is used to model the VQ-VAE's discrete latent space. The diffusion model is trained to generate intermediate music sequences consisting of codebook indexes, which are then decoded to symbolic music using the VQ-VAE's decoder. The results demonstrate our model can generate symbolic music with target composer styles that meet the given conditions with a high accuracy of 72.36%

Sonificazione di ostacoli come ausilio alla deambulazione di non vedenti

In questo articolo proponiamo uno schema di sonificazione che codifica informazione visiva nel dominio uditivo tramite suoni che simulano l’impatto tra il bastone e gli ostacoli che un non vedente incontra durante la deambulazione. Lo schema è valutato da sette utenti non vedenti in uno scenario virtuale semplificato. La valutazione non si limita all’accuratezza delle risposte secondo misure psicofisiche, includendo analisi del coinvolgimento e dello stress sperimentato dai partecipanti tramite segnali fisiologici. I risultati psicofisici mostrano che lo schema di sonificazione è in grado di comunicare informazioni significative riguardo la scena virtuale, anche se soltanto nei casi nei quali la procedura di training sia risultata sufficiente. I risultati psicofisiologici suggeriscono la necessità di modifiche allo schema di sonificazione che rendano lo stesso più coinvolgente

The Role of Haptic Cues in Musical Instrument Quality Perception

We draw from recent research in violin quality evaluation and piano performance to examine whether the vibrotactile sensation felt when playing a musical instrument can have a perceptual effect on its judged quality from the perspective of the musician. Because of their respective sound production mechanisms, the violin and the piano offer unique example cases and diverse scenarios to study tactile aspects of musical interaction. Both violinists and pianists experience rich haptic feedback, but the former experience vibrations at more bodily parts than the latter. We observe that the vibrotactile component of the haptic feedback during playing, both for the violin and the piano, provides an important part of the integrated sensory information that the musician experiences when interacting with the instrument. In particular, the most recent studies illustrate that vibrations felt at the fingertips (left hand only for the violinist) can lead to an increase in perceived sound loudness and richness, suggesting the potential for more research in this direction