diff talk/abstract @ 74:90901fd611d1

Final version of talk.

--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/talk/abstract	Fri Jun 01 16:17:32 2012 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+** Information dynamics and temporal structure in music **
+
+
+It has often been observed that one of the more salient effects
+of listening to music to create expectations within the listener,
+and that part of the art of making music to create a dynamic interplay
+of uncertainty, expectation, fulfilment and surprise. It was not until
+the publication of Shannon's work on information theory, however, that 
+the tools became available to quantify some of these concepts. 
+
+In this talk, we will examine how a small number of
+\emph{time-varying} information measures, such as entropies and mutual
+informations, computed in the context
+of a dynamically evolving probabilistic model, can be used to characterise
+the temporal structue of a stimulus sequence, considered as a random process 
+from the point of view of a Bayesian observer.
+
+One such measure is a novel predictive information rate, which we conjecture
+may provide an explanation for the `inverted-U' relationship often found between
+simple measures of randomness (\eg entropy rate) and
+judgements of aesthetic value [Berlyne 1971]. We explore these ideas in the context
+of Markov chains using both artificially generated sequences and
+two pieces of minimalist music by Philip Glass, showing that even an overly simple
+model (the Markov chain), when interpreted according to information dynamic
+principles, produces a structural analysis which largely agrees with that of an 
+human expert listener and improves on those generated by rule-based methods. 
+