Connectionists: Angelo Cangelosi speaking on June 28 in Developing Minds global online lecture series

[Jochen Triesch]

Dear colleagues,

On June 28, the Developing Minds global online lecture series will feature Angelo Cangelosi from U. of Manchester, UK, speaking on: "Developmental Robotics for Language Learning, Trust and Theory of Mind“.

The live event will take place via zoom at:
9:00 am EDT (Eastern Daylight Time, US)
13:00 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time)
2:00 pm BST (British Summer Time)
15:00 CET (Central European Time)
22:00 JST (Japan Standard Time)

To participate please register here:
https://sites.google.com/view/developing-minds-series/home

Abstract:
Growing theoretical and experimental research on action and language processing and on number learning and gestures clearly demonstrates the role of embodiment in cognition and language processing. In psychology and neuroscience, this evidence constitutes the basis of embodied cognition, also known as grounded cognition (Pezzulo et al. 2012). In robotics and AI, these studies have important implications for the design of linguistic capabilities in cognitive agents and robots for human-robot collaboration, and have led to the new interdisciplinary approach of Developmental Robotics, as part of the wider Cognitive Robotics field (Cangelosi & Schlesinger 2015; Cangelosi & Asada 2022). During the talk we will present examples of developmental robotics models and experimental results from iCub experiments on the embodiment biases in early word acquisition and grammar learning (Morse et al. 2015; Morse & Cangelosi 2017) and experiments on pointing gestures and finger counting for number learning (De La Cruz et al. 2014). We will then present a novel developmental robotics model, and experiments, on Theory of Mind and its use for autonomous trust behavior in robots (Vinanzi et al. 2019, 2021). The implications for the use of such embodied approaches for embodied cognition in AI and cognitive sciences, and for robot companion applications will also be discussed.

Selected References:
   • Cangelosi A, Asada M (Eds.) (2022). Cognitive Robotics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
   • Cangelosi A, Schlesinger M (2015). Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
   • De La Cruz V., Di Nuovo A., Cangelosi A., Di Nuovo S. (2014). Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 13 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00013
   • Morse A., Belpaeme T, Smith L, Cangelosi A. (2015). Posture affects how robots and infants map words to objects PLoS ONE, 10(3) 10.1371/journal.pone.0116012
   • Morse A, Cangelosi A (2017). Why are there developmental stages in language learning? A developmental robotics model of language development. Cognitive Science. 10.1111/cogs.12390
   • Pezzulo G., Barsalou L.W., Cangelosi A., Fischer M.H., McRae K., Spivey M. (2013). Computational grounded cognition: A new alliance between grounded cognition and computational modelling. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(612), 1-11. 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00612
   • Vinanzi, S., Patacchiola, M., Chella, A., & Cangelosi, A. (2019). Would a robot trust you? Developmental robotics model of trust and theory of mind. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 374(1771), 20180032. 10.1098/rstb.2018.0032
   • Vinanzi S., Cangelosi A., Goerick C. (2021). The collaborative mind: Intention reading and trust in human-robot interaction. iScience, 24(2), 102130 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102130

Short Bio:
Angelo Cangelosi is Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics at the University of Manchester (UK) and co-director and founder of the Manchester Centre for Robotics and AI. He holds an European Research Council (ERC) Advanced grant. He also is Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute London. His research interests are in cognitive and developmental robotics, neural networks, language grounding, human robot-interaction and trust, and robot companions for health and social care. Overall, he has secured over £38m of research grants as coordinator/PI, including the ERC Advanced eTALK, the UKRI TAS Trust Node and CRADLE Prosperity, the US AFRL project THRIVE++, and numerous Horizon and MSCAs grants. Cangelosi has produced more than 300 scientific publications. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journals Interaction Studies and IET Cognitive Computation and Systems, and in 2015 was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Development. He has chaired numerous international conferences, including ICANN2022 Bristol, and ICDL2021 Beijing. His book “Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots” (MIT Press) was published in January 2015, and translated in Chinese and Japanese. His latest book “Cognitive Robotics” (MIT Press), coedited with Minoru Asada, was recently published in 2022.

The talk will be recorded and made available for later viewing. For more information on the talk series and recordings of previous events, please visit:
https://sites.google.com/view/developing-minds-series/home

Best regards,
Jochen Triesch

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Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch
Johanna Quandt Chair for Theoretical Life Sciences
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and
Goethe University Frankfurt
http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/~triesch/
Tel: +49 (0)69 798-47531
Fax: +49 (0)69 798-47611