CFP: Neural Mechanisms of Music Processing

[Malcolm Slaney <malcolm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hopefully this will be interesting to some of you.  This is the call
for participants for a NIPS workshop on "Neural Mechanisms of Music
Processing."

-- Malcolm


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            Neural Mechanisms of Music Processing
                    Workshop at NIPS*99
           December 3 and 4, 1999, Breckenridge, CO
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               URL:  http://bach.ece.jhu.edu/nips99/

The term "music" covers a large variety of signals, from the simple
to the complex.  It is easy to choose stimuli to study a particular
phenomenon, be it pitch detection, harmonic analysis, sequence
prediction, or spatial location.  However, mixtures of time-varying
harmonics, intertwining sequences, resonances and spatial reflections
easily make music as complex and difficult to analyze as speech.  What
makes music especially interesting is the ability to control the
complexity of data, allowing independent control over a variety of
parameters which are not possible to separate in speech.

Reasonably, one may assume that the human brain did not develop
different mechanisms for dealing with speech as opposed to music, or
other natural sounds. Thus, research on the response of the auditory
cortex to music should yield valuable insights on speech processing
in the brain. The ever-increasing body of neurophysiological data on
the mammalian auditory system will pave the way for a solid
understanding of these mechanisms and the creation of accurate models
to describe them.

                       Call for Participation
                       ----------------------

We are soliciting participants for the NIPS Neural Mechanisms of
Music Processing Workshop. Please send a one-paragraph description of
your interests to:
                       nips99@bach.ece.jhu.edu

Based on these submissions, we will select a small number of speakers,
a number of panel members for discussions, and demonstrations. Our
goal is to create a stimulating environment for a scientific
discussion of the neural mechanisms of music processing.

This workshop will concentrate on several key issues which are
currently prominent in acoustics research. In particular, the intent
of the workshop is to bring together areas of research which appear
to be strongly related to the problem of music processing and to each
other. We are especially interested in participants that can
contribute in the following areas:

        Music Perception and Analysis
        Perceptual Attributes (i.e., pitch, rhythm, and timbre)
        Neural Basis of Audition
        Psychoacoustics of Music
        Auditory Modeling
        Interesting Representations (i.e., ICA)
       Neural Control Mechanisms


                          Workshop Format
                          ---------------

This will be a two-day workshop, combining talks, organized
discussions, and demonstrations of models and simulations.  NIPS is
the premiere conference on neurophysiological mechanisms, machine
learning, and applied statistics. The workshops, held at Breckenridge
Ski Resort, combine wonderful science and skiing in an informal
environment.

                           Organizers
                           ----------

        R. Timothy Edwards
        Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
        Laurel, MD
        email: tim@stravinsky.jhuapl.edu

        Shihab A. Shamma
        University of Maryland at College Park
        College Park, MD
        email: sas@glue.umd.edu

        Malcolm Slaney
        Interval Research
        Palo Alto, CA
        email: malcolm@interval.com