Information and cognitive regulation: a predictive approach to learning, reasoning, creativity and their competitive interface with consciousness.

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• Geraint A. Wiggins, Intelligent Sound and Music Systems Centre for Digital Music School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Queen Mary, University of London,
• Tuesday 13 November 2012, 12:00-13:00
• Dennis Gabor Seminar Room (611), EEE Department.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Henrik J Jensen.

I present progress towards a uniform model of cognitive process, which in which I attempt to bring together various aspects of cognition which are often studied separately and in isolation. The model is based on frequentist learning methods, and grounded in evolutionary theory. It admits deep learning, syntactic learning, and, in principle, semantic learning, and it accounts for elementary reasoning, by exapting a predictive mechanism for general survival.

Perhaps surprisingly, the model was motivated by the study of musical melody, and I will use this as my key example. Pearce’s (2005) frequentist model of music perception is the driver here, placed in the context of Gärdenfors’ (2000) Conceptual Spaces, at the perceptual level, and Baar’s (1988) Global Workspace Theory at the level of the interface with consciousness. Information theoretic measures are used to prioritise conscious processing and to regulate the contribution of non-conscious generative processes in perception and creativity. A key advantage of working with music, instead of other perceptual modes, or language, is that it is (almost) a closed system, with no essential external reference, but still with identifiable and classifiable semiotics. This allows us, in principle, to connect the multiple levels of process between audio signal and conscious experience without any appeal to denotation, vastly simplifying the models required.

This talk is part of the Complexity & Networks Group series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Complexity & Networks Group
• Dennis Gabor Seminar Room (611), EEE Department

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