Abstract:

Music composition is an intellectually demanding human activity that engages a wide range of cognitive faculties. Although several domain-general integrated cognitive architectures (ICAs) exist–-ACT-R, Soar, Icarus, etc.–-the use of integrated models for solving musical problems remains virtually unexplored. In designing MusiCOG, we wanted to bring forward ideas from our previous work, combine these with principles from the fields of music perception and cognition and ICA design, and bring these elements together in an initial attempt at an integrated model. Here we provide an introduction to MusiCOG, outline the operation of its various modules, and share some initial musical results.