VISUOMOTOR COORDINATION: AMPHIBIANS, MODELS, AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES

[Michael A. Arbib]

                          PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS

                                  Workshop on
       VISUOMOTOR COORDINATION: AMPHIBIANS, MODELS, AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES

                     Sedona, Arizona, November 22-24, 1996

Co-Directors: Kiisa Nishikawa (Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff) and
Michael Arbib (University of Southern California, Los Angeles).

Program Committee: Kiisa Nishikawa (Chair), Michael Arbib, Emilio Bizzi,
Chris Comer, Peter Ewert, Simon Gizster, Mel Goodale, Ananda Weerasuriya,
Walt Wilczynski, and Phil Zeigler.

Local Arrangements Chair: Kiisa Nishikawa.

This workshop is the sequel to four earlier workshops on the general theme
of "Visuomotor Coordination in Frog and Toad: Models and Experiments".  The
first two were organized by Rolando Lara and Michael Arbib at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1981) and Mexico City (1982).  The
next two were organized by Peter Ewert and Arbib in Kassell and Los
Angeles, respectively, with the Proceedings published as follows:

Ewert, J.-P. and Arbib, M.A., Eds., 1989, Visuomotor Coordination:
Amphibians, Comparisons, Models and Robots, New York: Plenum Press.
Arbib, M.A.and  J.-P. Ewert, Eds., 1991, Visual Structures and Integrated
Functions, Research Notes in Neural Computing 3, Heidelberg, New York:
Springer-Verlag.

The time is ripe for a fifth Workshop on this theme, with the more generic
title "Visuomotor Coordination: Amphibians, Models, and Comparative
Studies".  The Workshop will be held in Sedona - a beautiful small resort
town set in dramatic red hills in Arizona - straight after the Society for
Neuroscience meeting in 1996.  Next year, Neuroscience ends on Thursday,
November 21, 1996, in Washington, DC, so people can fly to Phoenix that
evening, meet Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and fly home Monday November
25th (so that US types not going to Neuroscience get the Saturday stopover
that they could not get if we met before Neuroscience).

The aim is to study the neural mechanisms of visuomotor coordination in
frog and toad both for their intrinsic interest and as a target for
developments in computational neuroscience, and also as a basis for
comparative and evolutionary studies.  The list of subsidiary themes given
below is meant to be representative of this comparative dimension, but is
not intended to be exhaustive.  In each case, the emphasis (but not the
exclusive emphasis) will be on papers which contribute to the development
of both modeling and experimentation.

Central Theme: Visuomotor Coordination in Frog and Toad

Subsidiary Themes:
Visuomotor Coordination: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives
Reaching and Grasping in Frog, Pigeon, and Primate
Cognitive Maps
Auditory Communication (with emphasis on spatial behavior and sensory
integration)
Sensory Control of Motor Pattern Generators

Formal registration information will be available in March of 1996.
Scientists who wish to present papers are asked to send three copies of
extended abstracts no later than March 31st, 1996 to:

Kiisa Nishikawa
Department of Biological Sciences
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5640

Notification of the Program Committee's decision will be sent out no later
than May 31st, 1996.

A decision as to whether or not to publish a proceedings is still pending.