Connectionists: NIPS 07 Workshop announcement

[David R. Hardoon]

Apologies for cross posting and please forward to whom ever this may  
be of interest to.

             NIPS'07 Workshop - Whistler, BC, December 7-8, 2007

                                         Music, Brain & Cognition
      Day 1: "Learning the Structure of Music and its Effects on the  
Brain"
      Day 2: "Models of Sound and Music Cognition"

======================================================

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/MBCworkshop07/


Call for contributions
------------

We call for paper contribution of up to 8 pages to the workshop using
NIPS style. The accepted papers will be available for downloading from
this site. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a  
special
issue of “Journal of New Music Research”.

Day 1
- Machine learning based models for learning the structure of music
- Models for predicting style of performers
- Analysis and models of fMRI/EEG/MEG scans from musical stimuli  (as
   opposed tosimplistic auditory stimuli)
- Predicting music generated patterns in fMRI/EEG/MEG
- Strategies for embedding representations of musical experience into
   generative music / performance systems
- Methods for generative musical performance and composition
- Generative music and/or performance systems based on models of
    brain functioning
- Similar and further models for learning and analysing the structure
    of music

Day 2
- Computational models of cognitively inspired sound processing
- Top down control of musical processing of pitch, onset, timbre
- Models of musical memory, saliency, attention
- Models of music development and learning
- Computer aided sound design
- Models as above, applied to other domains (e.g. speech and vision)
   with potential application in music

Accepted papers will be either presented as a talk or poster (with
poster spotlight)

Papers should be submitted to the organisers D.Hardoon at cs.ucl.ac.uk,
hpurwins at iua.upf.edu and please indicate if you wish to present on
day 1 or day 2 and whether you only wish to present a poster.


Important Dates
------------

Deadline for submissions:   October 10, 2007
Notification of acceptance:   October 31, 2007
Workshop taking place:        December 7-8, 2007


Description
------------

Music is one of the most widespread of human cultural activities,
existing in some form in all cultures throughout the world. The
definition of music as organised sound is widely accepted today
but a naïve interpretation of this definition may suggest the notion
that music exists widely in the animal kingdom, from the rasping
of crickets' legs to the songs of the nightingale. However, only in
the case of humans does music appear to be surplus to any
obvious biological purpose, while at the same time being a strongly
learned phenomenon and involving significant higher order
cognitive processing rather than eliciting simple hardwired responses.

A two day workshop will take place at NIPS 07 (Vancouver, Canada)
and will span topics from signal processing and musical structure to
the cognition of music and sound.  In the first day the workshop will
provide a forum for cutting edge research addressing the fundamental
challenges of modeling the structure of  music and  analysing its effect
on the brain. It will also provide a  venue for interaction between the
machine learning and the neuroscience/brain imaging communities to
discuss the broader  questions related to modeling the dynamics of
brain activity. During the second day the workshop will focus on the
modeling of sound, music perception and cognition. These have
provide, with the crucial role of machine learning, a break-through in
various areas of music technology, in particular: Music Information
Retrieval (MIR), expressive music synthesis, interactive music making,
and sound design. Understanding of music cognition in its implied
top-down processes can help to decide which of the many descriptors
in MIR are crucial for the musical experience and which are irrelevant.

The organisers of the workshop are investigators for three main
European projects;  Learning the Structure of Music (Le StruM),
Closing the loop of Evaluation and Design (CLOSED), Emergent
Cognition through Active Perception (EmCAP) Mention.

The target group is of researchers within the fields of (Music)
Cognition, Music Technology, Machine Learning, Psychology, Sound
Design, Signal Processing and Brain Imaging.


For more details, please go to http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/ 
MBCworkshop07/
Day 1 - http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/MBCworkshop07/Day_1.html
Day 2 - http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/MBCworkshop07/Day_2.html


Organisers
------------

Day 1
* David R. Hardoon               (University College London)
* Eduardo Reck-Miranda      (University of Plymouth)
* John Shawe-Taylor             (University College London)

Day 2
* Hendrik Purwins                  (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
* Xavier Serra                         (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
* Klaus Obermayer                (Berlin University of Technology)


----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Who dares... wins"

Dr. David R. Hardoon
The Centre for Computational Statistics & Machine Learning
Intelligent Systems Research Group
Dept. of Computer Science
University College, London
Gower Street
London, UK WC1E 6BT

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 0425
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7387 1397
Email: D.Hardoon at cs.ucl.ac.uk
www: http://homepage.mac.com/davidrh/