This study is a first attempt at formalizing the concept of Musi- cal Relevance from a cognitive and computational perspective. We elaborate on Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, and extend it to account for musical cognition, involving both lis- tening and understanding. Our claim is that the application of the concept of Cognitive Relevance to music would permit us to partially explain hearers’ behavior and composers’ choices. A computational model of Musical Relevance could also con- tribute to the formulation of a general computational theory of musical cognition. In turn, formulating an algorithm to com- pute Musical Relevance can shed light on the computational nature of the broader cognitive principle of relevance. We pro- pose to unify Relevance Theory with the Generative Theory of Tonal Music, in order to compute Musical Relevance. We started implementing a system to test the proposed approach over simple examples and report about the results in a prelim- inary experimentation.

Musical Relevance: a Computational Approach

ACOTTO, EDOARDO;RADICIONI, DANIELE PAOLO
2012-01-01

Abstract

This study is a first attempt at formalizing the concept of Musi- cal Relevance from a cognitive and computational perspective. We elaborate on Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, and extend it to account for musical cognition, involving both lis- tening and understanding. Our claim is that the application of the concept of Cognitive Relevance to music would permit us to partially explain hearers’ behavior and composers’ choices. A computational model of Musical Relevance could also con- tribute to the formulation of a general computational theory of musical cognition. In turn, formulating an algorithm to com- pute Musical Relevance can shed light on the computational nature of the broader cognitive principle of relevance. We pro- pose to unify Relevance Theory with the Generative Theory of Tonal Music, in order to compute Musical Relevance. We started implementing a system to test the proposed approach over simple examples and report about the results in a prelim- inary experimentation.
2012
The 34th International Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
Sapporo, Japan
Wednesday, August 1 - Saturday August 4, 2012
Proceedings of the 34th International Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
Cognitive Science Society
1248
1253
9780976831884
Relevance Theory; Computational Approach; A Generative Theory of Tonal Music; Tonal Pitch Space
Edoardo Acotto; Daniele Paolo Radicioni
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
acotto12musical.pdf

Accesso aperto

Tipo di file: POSTPRINT (VERSIONE FINALE DELL’AUTORE)
Dimensione 1.23 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.23 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/113200
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 1
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact