msg.surround~ is a very simple 4 channel surround panning external for Max/MSP (Mac UB only at this stage -although feel free to compile!!). It doesn’t do any interpolation and is completely linear. In addition, it doesn’t (as yet) include the distance measure. This is the surround panning algorithm used in Noisescape (see Grierson, M., “Noisescape : An Interactive 3D Multi-user Composition
Environment”, Proceedings of the ICMC 2007 Volume 1 ISBN 0-9713192-5-1)

msg.surround~ is licensed under the GPL

new_msgsurround.zip

Noisescape version 0.1

NOISESCAPE was well received at the ICMC 2007 - the demo was limited to two players, and spatialisation was disabled (due to lack of processing on machine number 2). There was some valuable input from attendees. Some changes are being made as a result of these comments (most importantly with respect to usability - many people found the environment hard to navigate) and Version 0.1 will be available for download soon.

For those of you interested in the technical specifications of the Noisescape project, the ICMC 2007 paper is available here.

noisescape1.pdf

And for those who want to see what’s inside NOISESCAPE 0.05 - here’s the archive: (Note - Max/MSP/Jitter required):

NOISESCAPE_V0.05_Archive

The first paper to be produced as part of the C.A.V.E project has been accepted for the ICMC 2007 in Copenhagen. The paper, entitled NOISESCAPE: AN INTERACTIVE 3D AUDIOVISUAL MULTI-USER COMPOSITION ENVIRONMENT will be made available here for download (in press) at the end of June.

The paper describes the newly developed NOISESCAPE system - the first C.A.V.E software project. This project forms a general framework for forthcoming experimental designs with a number of key collaborators in Cognitive Neuroscience and Signals Analysis.

In addition to the paper being made available, the software will also be released in its initial form to coincide with its launch at the ICMC.

More details to follow.

In this fascinating article entitled “Motor-sensory recalibration leads to an illusory reversal of action and sensation” by Stetson C, Cui X, Montague PR, Eagleman DM., studies demonstrate that a subject’s perception of time can be recalibrated so that events resulting from their own actions are perceived as happening beforehand.

Here’s a great 2005 article by Amir Raz, Jin Fan, and Michael I. Posner on the effects of hypnotic suggestion on the common stroop task. Basically, if you hypnotise someone to ignore the effect of the colour/word interference, the expected reaction time delay disappears.

According to this cross-cultural cross-gender study on the perceived attractiveness of faces by Johannes Honekopp, the finer aspects of taste could be a very detailed thing. Although there is no real debate about the differences between very unnatractive people and very attractive people, when the deviation from the average face is minimal, taste is much more widely spread. You could possibly suggest that there’s no real significance in this study if the same subjects rate attractiveness in an unreliable way at this detailed level (i.e. wildly different results on multiple tests). Nevertheless, it could be useful in helping to create a case for the impact of constructing context through manipulation of available choice in facial attractiveness perception.

Expressive material is found all over the world. Human beings generate huge amounts of art. Art can be seen as a marker for civilisation - as can farming.

The idea that all aspects of art criticism and understanding are located only within specific cultural fields is prevelant and well accepted. There is a view that science, including neuroscience and by association, neuroaesthetics, challenges this perspective. Science is reductive, and reductionism is incompatible with variation in culture. This is not the case. Developing some form of structural objective framework for analysing response to expression defines a clear cultural field. With respect to neuroscience, not all brains are the same. Science acknowledges that understanding variation is crucial. Likewise, the arts should accept that denying the importance of the general is short sighted. 

There are a number of issues with neurosaesthetics - but these are not unknown (examples include pleasure from the denial of symmetry, repetition and orderliness, and the existing literature on Gestalt psychology - more on these later), and in Ramachandran’s Reith lectures of 2003, he states that his theory of neuroaesthetics is speculative. However, the debates that have arisen within the arts over the past 10 years as a result of arts/science convergence represent a significant paradigm shift.

There is an excellent review of Ramachandran’s 10 principles of Art here.

In addition, Brain Ethics an excellent review of the literature on bioaestheics.

This is one of the most difficult things to explain to musicians regarding film and video work - Visual working memory and attention have capacity limits of approximately 4 elements. This is one of the reasons that Audiovisualisation mostly fails - and also why simply mapping each sound to a visual object is not always the best option. Attention must be directed and controlled, or confounded purposefully. Research supporting this argument is available here (Fougnie D, Marois R, 2006). 

A highly informative summary of this topic is available here on Chris Chatham’s excellent neuroscience blog, Developing Intelligence.

Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads by Ted Brader

This nature article from July 2006 details exciting experiments that allow a tertraplegic to operate a computer through the use of a brain prosthesis. Tryuly amazing footage of the experiments here. If this type of signal translation is possible, it could prove very useful in a number of ways. The question is, how long before there will be a non-invasive approach?