Thursday, April 17, 2014

Can music convey a personality?

I recently tried out Beau Sievers' super-cool Bouncing Ball software. It generates both – you guessed it – an animated bouncing ball, and also music to accompany its movements. By changing around 5 parameters, you can try and get it to match an emotion or mood.

How does it work? Well, you choose the music clip's speed, irregularity, consonance (i.e. major or minor), pitch range, and probability of making upwards or downward sequences. There is no set score – the software chooses the next note and timing based on probabilities.

Example: "Cheerful" parameter settings

Now, I'm wondering if these 5 parameters can convey not just emotions, but personality types as well. I'm hoping to contribute to Julien Richard's NaoBrain project.

Here are a few attempts. Let me know what you think!

Cheerful: happy, bright, optimistic and positive.
Cute: like a toddler, infantile, a bit unsure
Kind: a caregiver, like Mary Poppins!
Machine: your typical machine
Sarcastic: dry and ironic, like House
Serious: formal, butler-like

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