[ACT-R-users] First Announcement and CFP: Remembering Who We Are - Human Memory for Artificial Agents at AISB 2010

Thu Aug 13 11:41:39 EDT 2009

Dear colleagues,

Please see below the first CFP for the human memory 
modeling symposium.

Cheers,
Holger

***** Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email ******* 

CALL FOR PAPERS

REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE - HUMAN MEMORY FOR ARTIFICIAL AGENTS

A one day symposium on the 29th March 2010 In conjunction with the AISB 
2010 Convention
(http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb10/AISB2010.html)
De Montfort University, Leicester
(The symposium is supported by the European FP7 Project LIREC
(http://www.lirec.eu/) <http://www.lirec.eu/%29>)

Memory gives us identity, shapes our personality and drives our 
reactions to different situations in life. We actively create 
expectations, track the fulfilment of these expectations and
dynamically 
modify our memory when new experiences demand it. Yet up to date, many 
important social aspects of human memory (for instance, emotional
memory 
and episodic memory) to artificial intelligent agents have not been 
given much attention. The challenge might lie in the amount of memories 
one can have in a life time. Take a narrative agent for example, how
can 
we generate a lifetime’s worth of memories for this agent? Can we
easily 
record human experiences for this purpose? What trust and privacy
issues 
will this entail? On the other hand, without this type of memory, can 
the agent generate believable life stories given that it is what colors 
our lives in retrospect? For an agent that continuously interacts with 
users or other agents, how can we design it with the capability to 
generate memories worth remembering in its lifetime? How can the agent 
record experiences of others during interaction? Can the agent maintain 
its relationship with others without any information about its past 
experiences with them?

Artificial agent researchers have been constantly coming up with 
computational cognitive models inspired by the human brain to create 
characters that are more natural, believable and behave in human 
plausible ways. However, memory components in these models are usually 
oversimplified. Memory components which have been widely accepted and 
modelled are the long-term memory including procedural and declarative 
memories, the short-term memory and the sensory memory. What about the 
more ‘socially-aware’ memory which allows us to be effectively involved 
in social interactions and which fundamentally supports the creation of 
our life stories including the significance of events and their 
emotional impact? It is important to review artificial agents without 
this kind of memory particularly those designed for social
interactions, 
and reflect on the effects of this shortcoming. Additionally, many 
existing models do not take into consideration the bio-mechanisms of 
human memory operations such as those involved in retrieval and 
forgetting processes. The most commonly adopted approach to forgetting 
is decay but the human brain performs other processes such as 
generalisation, reconstruction and repression to list a few.

This symposium offers an opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions 
on human-like memory for artificial agents including organisational 
structures and mechanisms. We hope to bring together memory
researchers, 
psychologists, computer scientists and neurologists to discuss issues
on 
memory modelling, memory data collection and application to achieve a 
better understanding of which, when and how human-like memory can 
contribute to artificial agents modelling.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

* Role of memory in artificial agents
* Type of memory and application
* Memory and emotion modelling
* Human-agent/human-robot interaction history
* Effective memory data collection
* Privacy issues related to data collection
* Bio-inspiration to memory modelling
* Memory mechanisms for encoding, storage and retrieval
* Memory influence on reasoning and decision-making
* Modelling forgetting in episodic memory
* Ethological aspects of memory
* Spatial memory

Submission

We are seeking submissions of original papers (up to 8 pages) that fit 
well with the symposium theme and topics. Please send the PDF 
submissions to Mei Yii Lim (M.Lim at hw.ac.uk <mailto:M.Lim at hw.ac.uk>) and 
Wan Ching Ho (W.C.Ho at herts.ac.uk <mailto:W.C.Ho at herts.ac.uk>),
including 
in the email text the following information: title of paper, keywords, 
author list, contact email, name of attached PDF file. All submissions 
will be peer reviewed. Authors of accepted contributions will be asked 
to prepare the final versions (up to 8 pages) for inclusion in the 
symposium proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper will 
be required to register and attend the symposium to present their work.

Important Dates

* 15th January 2010: Submission deadline of full-length paper
* 8th February 2010: Notification for paper acceptance
* 1st March 2010: Submission of camera-ready final papers
* 29th March 2010: Symposium

Program Committee

Cyril Brom, Charles University Prague
Sibylle Enz, University of Bamberg
Wan Ching Ho, University of Hertfordshire (co-chair)
Mei Yii Lim, Heriot-Watt University (co-chair)
Andrew Nuxoll, University of Portland
Alexei Samsonovich, George Mason University
Holger Schultheis, University of Bremen
Dan Tecuci, University of Texas
Patricia Vargas, Heriot-Watt University

Official Website

http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~myl/AISBRWWA.html 
<http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/%7Emyl/AISBRWWA.html>

Contact

Dr. Mei Yii Lim
Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, EH14 4AS, UK
Email: M.Lim at hw.ac.uk <mailto:M.Lim at hw.ac.uk>
Homepage: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~myl/ <http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/%
7Emyl/>
Tel: (44) 131 4514162
Fax: (44) 131 4513327

Dr. Wan Ching Ho
STRI, University of Hertfordshire,
College Lane, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK
Email: W.C.Ho at herts.ac.uk <mailto:W.C.Ho at herts.ac.uk>
Homepage: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqwch/ 
<http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/%7Ecomqwch/>
Tel: (44) 170 7285111
Fax: (44) 170 7284185