From Eco to the Mirror Neurons: Founding a Systematic Perspective of the Reflexive Interaction Paradigm Anna Rita Addessi Dept. of Music and Performing Arts., University of Bologna, Italy annarita.addessi@unibo.it ABSTRACT The MIROR Project (EC project, FP7-ICT) deals with the development of an innovative adaptive system for children' music improvisation, composition and body performance, based on the reflexive interaction paradigm. This paradigm is based on the idea of letting users manipulate virtual copies of themselves, through specifically designed machine-learning software referred to as interactive reflexive musical systems (IRMS). In this paper, the theoretical framework of the reflexive interaction paradigm is discussed from a systematic musicological perspective. Implications are introduced, aiming to support the hypothesis that the reflexive interaction enhances teaching/learning processes and musical creativity in children. I. INTRODUCTION The reflexive interaction paradigm is based on the idea of letting users manipulate virtual copies of themselves, through specifically designed machine-learning software referred to as interactive reflexive musical systems (IRMS) (Pachet 2003). In this paper, the theoretical framework of the reflexive interaction paradigm is discussed from a systematic musicological perspective. It starts from the conceptual and technical background of the IRMS and will continue with a path that try to explain the human behaviours involved in the reflexive interaction. These highlighted elements will be proposed to support the hypothesis that the reflexive interaction could enhance teaching/learning processes and musical creativity in children, placing some fundamentals for a pedagogy of reflexive interaction. Research is carried out in the framework of the EU-ICT Project MIROR (Musical Interaction Relying On Reflexion). II. FROM ECO TO THE MIRROR NEURONS From a systematic musicological perspective, the theoretical framework of the reflexive interaction paradigm could include references from the myth of Eco (Ovidio, 43 a.C.-18, Metamorphoseon libri XV), to the theories of the empathetic power of music, the Affektenlehre (Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna, Firenze, 1581; Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis, 1650), to the more recent semiological paradigmatic analysis (Meeùs 1993, Ruwet 1966, Nattiez 1986) and theories of similarity perception in listening music (I. Deliège 2003, Toiviainen 2007), playing an important role in the infant musicality development and in the ontological fundamentals of the human musicality (Trevarthen 2000, Dissanayke 2000, Imberty 2005, Mithen 2005, Cross 2008), and finally grounding its neurophisiological fundamentals on the theory of mirror neurons (Rizzolatti et al. 1998). Moreover, a concept across is included in this systematic overview on the reflexive interaction paradigm, that is the concept of style: in principle, during a reflexive interaction (RI in short) the other does not imitate exactly what the imitated is doing, but rather imitates her/his style, in our case her/his musical style. Moreover, there is another aspect that characterises the RI paradigm, namely that it involves not only human identities, but also virtual and artificial intelligence: in the MIROR platform the other that imitates your style is not your mother, nor the lover of Eco's myth, but rather a machine. This fact leads to an other important question, that is what happens when these interactions are determined not among human (including children), but between humans and machines, and in our case, between children and machines? The problem of child/machine interaction has already been raised for many years by an important literature of scientific and theoretical studies of scholars who have examined how the interaction with the new technology can model the human everyday behaviour, intelligence, mind and body cognition (e.g. see Turkle 1984, De Kerckhove 1991, Nehaniv & Dautenhahn 2007, Godøy & Leman 2010). However, studies are still lacking on reflexive paradigm in child/machine interaction. In 2002 it is published the first article on a system that produces real-time responses that mimic the style of a musician who plays a keyboard, a virtual alter ego with which to undertake challenging duets: the Continuator (Pachet, 2003). The idea is to develop a machine that gives to the user the perception to interact with something the same as himself. In this case the machine does not exactly mimic the user's proposal, but his musical style, or, in other words his musical identity. The experiments that followed immediately after with adults (e.g. see Pachet, 2006) and especially with children (e.g. see Addessi & Pachet, 2005) have made it immediately obvious the potential of these reflexive systems for the development of creative musical experiences. The paradigm of reflexive interaction could contribute to the field of theoretical studies on music creativity, bringing a fresh perspective in technological and pedagogical applications. III. THE INTERACTIVE REFLEXIVE MUSICAL SYSTEMS Interactive Reflexive Musical Systems, were originally conceived at the SONY FRANCE Computer Science Laboratory in Paris (Pachet, 2003, 2006). The notion of IRMS emerged from experiments in novel forms of man- machine interactions, in which users essentially manipulates an “image” of themselves. This idea took the form of a 9