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Agent:  (roughly synonymous with the terms: "receptor", "resource", "mental-resource",  "processor", "processing center") The term used by Marvin Minsky in his book "The Society of Mind" to denote the many various (relatively-) primitive intellectual functions which collectively make up  human intelligence or "the mind".  In a more recent book ("The Emotion Machine"), Minsky uses the term "resource" in place of  "agent".

In OMS, we generally use the term "receptor" to avoid making a 100% commitment to Minksy's usage. Also, we wish to emphasize that from the OMS point of view, the primary function of an agent/resource/receptor is simply to receive a sonic/musical stimulus - we are less concerned with what happens after the stimulus has been received.

For details see  OMS - Formal Exposition .

Bi-polar: Some receptors are sensitive to a given attribute or its opposite and can be strongly stimulated by either. E.g. the receptor "Beauty" can be strongly stimulated either by beauty or ugliness.

Note-centric Model of Music: The view that all significant aspects of music may be modeled in terms on the concept of a note plus concepts that can be derived from it (e.g. motive, phrase, melody, chord, rhythm, tone center, Schenker structures, ...). The Note-centric Model is implicit in Western tonal music, and also most post-tonal music (e.g. serial music). The Note-centric model is time-honored (over 400 years old) and useful, but it is also known to have many inadequacies. OMS is the first major alternative to the Note-centric model of music.

Processing Center: See "Agent"

Processor: See "Agent"

Receptor: See "Agent"

Resource: See "Agent"

Society of Mind: A model of human intelligence developed by Marvin Minsky, the renowned pioneer of the field of Artificial Intelligence ("AI"). The central idea of Society of Mind is that human intelligence is the result of a large collection of relatively primitive intellectual functions (Minksy calls them "agents" or "resources") which are loosely coordinated. Society of Mind is the principal psychological model utilized by OMS. One reason that Society of Mind is a useful model is that it derives from decades of extensive developments in the field of AI. For more information, see Minsky's book "The Society of Mind", or  this Wikipedia article .