THE PSYCHO-ADAPTIVE LISTENING MACHINE: AN APPLICATION
OF PERCEPTUAL CONTROL THEORY TO COMPUTER MUSIC
Erik Gottesman
3607 Jane Dr.
Midland, MI 48642-9751 USA
emgottes @umich.edu
Abstract
The Psycho-Adaptive Listening Machine (PALM) is a conceptual framework for
composition and the study of musical cognition. PALM is based on perceptual control
theory, a theory of animal behavior.
1 Introduction
Living organisms do not produce repeatable actions, they produce repeatable results. When we make
aesthetic evaluations of the results of creative behavior, we do so in a dynamic fashion, influenced by
preconditioning, intrinsic and extrinsic disturbances. To understand this process, requires insight into how
we accept and interpret environmental stimuli. The computer is an appropriate tool for the study of this
phenomenon.
2 Background
The use of electrical signals emanating from living organisms (bioelectric signals) to create music is not
new. While a complete history of bioelectric music experiments is beyond the scope of this paper, some
background is appropriate. The history of bioelectric music experiments can be traced back to 1934 with
the translation of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) into audio signals (Adrian and Matthews 1934);
these experiments went largely unnoticed until the late 1960s. In the decades that followed, the efforts of
many composers and artists (Lucier 1976; Arcadiou 1986; Rosenboom 1976, 1989; Knapp and Lusted
1990) established work in this arena as meritorious. These systems may produce some interesting musical
results, but they will tend to be stylistically limited, and due to their reliance on ill-structured methods of
acquisition and analysis they tell us very little about the underlying processes of musical cognition. We
must seek a new paradigm that closely resembles our own context-sensitive behavioral practices, both
innate and experiential.
3 The Nature of Control
In the field of psychology, theories of behavior are implemented with the intent of explaining phenomena
related to conscious and unconscious processes via explicit mechanisms assumed to be simpler than the
phenomena explained (Laske 1974). Perceptual control theory (PCT) is a theory of human and animal
behavior, an extension of control theory principles first explored in the early 1950's by the cyberneticists
Weiner and Ashby; however, William T. Powers' seminal 1973 book, Behavior: The Control of
Perception, contributed the first substantial insight into the requirements and consequences of applying
physical science to the field of psychology. In accordance with other theories of behavior, PCT strives to
explain a phenomenon, namely the phenomenon of control. Let us define control as follows:
A is said to control B if for every disturbing influence acting on B, A generates an action that tends
strongly to counteract the effect of the disturbing influence on B.
Using this definition, we can begin to construct a useful system for the explication of behavior via
bioelectric signals. Such a system is not a biocontroller (Knapp and Lusted 1990), as it does not control
anything. Rather, it provides something far more useful: schemata for the process of perceptual control.
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