Motivational states and the evolution of musical styles in autonomous virtual communities

• Grant number: 11/24037-5
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Effective date (Start): July 09, 2012
• Effective date (End): July 08, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal researcher: Jônatas Manzolli
• Grantee: Marcelo Gimenes
• Supervisor abroad: Steven Jan
• Home Institution: Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Comunicação Sonora (NICS). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Huddersfield, England

Abstract

This Internship Project addresses a specific and major issue of the research project of the Regular Scholarship in Brazil, entitled "Emergence and Development of Musical Styles in Autonomous Virtual Communities" (Main Project). The latter investigates the emerging and self-organization processes that would occur in cultural evolution, or more specifically, in the evolution of musical knowledge and styles through the simulation of virtual environments of continued execution. To study this subject, an interactive music system (CoMA - Comunidades Musicais Autônomas, i.e., Autonomous Musical Communities) has been specifically implemented to ensure the possibility of social interactions independent of human intervention. In this system, software agents reproduce and inherit characteristics from their parents, define and develop their own musical careers, and once they achieve their goals, they perish. In addition to the reproductive capability, agents exhibit emotions and personality, make motivated decisions and are subject to social pressures.These characteristics, which imply a weight and balance system, allow the occurrence of different dynamics of social interaction that have the potential to directly influence the evolution of musical styles. The internship research overseas should determine whether and how the motivational states implemented in the system CoMA help to define the behaviour of the agents, how they are interrelated and to what extent the evolution of the agents' musical styles is influenced by them. It is expected that the understanding of these issues will contribute to the use of the system CoMA in applications related to the practice of musical composition and computer-aided analysis. Potential users of the system may, for instance, design simulations in which the manipulation of initial parameters lead to processes that can produce musically interesting results. In addition, under the analytical point of view, scenarios can be designed in order to deepen the understanding of evolutionary processes based on cognitive and social models, and musical practices of the real world. (AU)