Self-organization in Piano Playing: Why Pattern Transition?

Abstract Over billions of years, natural lives and organs have evolved with essential self-organized life-sustaining activities such as locomotion and respiration. Biological studies have shown that the Central Pattern Generator (CPG) is the essential mechanism for such pattern transitions. Embodied intelligence is a paradigm for investigating how humans employ the decentralized controller and embodiment of the body to interact with their environment (piano). Previously piano playing robots were hard-coded to implement mechanical contact and musical generation, resulting in clumsy non-anthropomorphic keystrokes. Instead, we revisit the piano challenge by studying the biomechanical physics of the body, the self-organization of reflexive behavior, and the neuro-muscular synergy in terms of coordinated behavioral diversity and energy minimization.