Building a Science of Animal Minds: Lloyd Morgan, Experimentation, and Morgan’s Canon

Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936) is widely regarded as the father of modern comparative psychology. Yet, Morgan initially had significant doubts about whether a genuine science of comparative psychology was even possible, only later becoming more optimistic about our ability to make reliable inferences about the mental capacities of non-human animals. There has been a fair amount of disagreement amongst scholars of Morgan’s work about the nature, timing, and causes of this shift in Morgan’s thinking. We argue that Morgan underwent two quite different shifts of attitude towards the proper practice of comparative psychology. The first was a qualified acceptance of the Romanesian approach to comparative psychology that he had initially criticized. The second was a shift away from Romanes’ reliance on systematizing anecdotal evidence of animal intelligence towards an experimental approach, focused on studying the development of behaviour. We emphasize the role of Morgan’s evolving epistemological views in bringing about the first shift – in particular, his philosophy of science. We emphasize the role of an intriguing but overlooked figure in the history of comparative psychology in explaining the second shift, T. Mann Jones, whose correspondence with Morgan provided an important catalyst for Morgan’s experimental turn, particularly the special focus on development. We also shed light on the intended function of Morgan’s Canon, the methodological principle for which Morgan is now mostly known. The Canon can only be properly understood by seeing it in the context of Morgan’s own unique experimental vision for comparative psychology

Exploring the Digital Music Instrument Trombosonic with Extreme Users and at a Participatory Performance

We introduce the “Trombosonic” as a new digital music instrument inspired by the slide trombone. An ultrasonic sensor combined with a red laser allows the performer to play the instrument using similar movements to playing a trombone to change the pitch, despite the absence of a physical slider, by moving one hand back and forth. Additional sensors enhance the potential for musical expression by movement of the whole interface and by using the breath. We identify and discuss a variety of design issues arising from the Trombosonic. Due to its compact size and the lack of a slider, the Trombosonic can be played in many different ways. In order to explore varied potential uses of the Trombosonic, we carried out a series of informal evaluations. These included experts in new musical instruments, an older user, a younger user, an interaction design expert, and the audience at an experimental concert with audience participation. Future work is also discussed. Further technical development might include a built-in microphone to use the human voice and an expansion of the synthesiser’s features

Design Implications for Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in Live Music

Mobile and sensor-based technologies have created new interaction design possibilities for technology-mediated au- dience participation in live music performance. However, there is little if any work in the literature that systematically identifies and characterises design issues emerging from this novel class of multi-dimensional interactive performance systems. As an early contribution towards addressing this gap in knowledge, we present the analysis of a detailed sur- vey of technology-mediated audience participation in live music, from the perspective of two key stakeholder groups - musicians and audiences. Results from the survey of over two hundred spectators and musicians are presented, along with descriptive analysis and discussion. These results are used to identify emerging design issues, such as expressive- ness, communication and appropriateness. Implications for interaction design are considered. While this study focuses on musicians and audiences, lessons are noted for diverse stakeholders, including composers, performers, interaction designers, media artists and engineers

A STILE Project case study: The evaluation of a computer‐based visual key for fossil identification

This paper presents an investigation of the effectiveness, for specimen identification, of a visual representation of a biological key. The example used in the investigation, the beetles database, is one of a number of resources developed under the STILE Project (Students’ and Teachers’ Integrated Learning Environment). This project uses hypermedia to provide greater opportunities for independent and flexible modes of learning both in a campus situation and for distance learning. The beetles database was constructed to aid final‐year project students’ in their identification of palaeo‐ecological field specimens. The development of this database was a response to a perceived need to reduce time spent on the time‐consuming skill of identification, and to focus students’ efforts on the significance of their field data. Four third‐year student undergraduates, two experienced and two inexperienced users of paper keys, were presented with a range of field specimens to identify using either the paper key or the STILE visual database. Our results show that the visual database was both the preferred way of operating and more effective than paper keys for all students

Discrimination and synthesis of recursive quantum states in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces

We propose an interferometric method for statistically discriminating between nonorthogonal states in high dimensional Hilbert spaces for use in quantum information processing. The method is illustrated for the case of photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) states. These states belong to pairs of bases that are mutually unbiased on a sequence of two-dimensional subspaces of the full Hilbert space, but the vectors within the same basis are not necessarily orthogonal to each other. Over multiple trials, this method allows distinguishing OAM eigenstates from superpositions of multiple such eigenstates. Variations of the same method are then shown to be capable of preparing and detecting arbitrary linear combinations of states in Hilbert space. One further variation allows the construction of chains of states obeying recurrence relations on the Hilbert space itself, opening a new range of possibilities for more abstract information-coding algorithms to be carried out experimentally in a simple manner. Among other applications, we show that this approach provides a simplified means of switching between pairs of high-dimensional mutually unbiased OAM bases

Quantum simulation of topologically protected states using directionally unbiased linear-optical multiports

It is shown that quantum walks on one-dimensional arrays of special linear-optical units allow the simulation of discrete-time Hamiltonian systems with distinct topological phases. In particular, a slightly modified version of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) system can be simulated, which exhibits states of nonzero winding number and has topologically protected boundary states. In the large-system limit this approach uses quadratically fewer resources to carry out quantum simulations than previous linear-optical approaches and can be readily generalized to higher-dimensional systems. The basic optical units that implement this simulation consist of combinations of optical multiports that allow photons to reverse direction