Connectionists: CFP Special Issue of Connection Science on Developmental Robotics

[Lisa Meeden]

Connection Science Journal
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09540091.asp

Call for Papers: Due September 15, 2005
A Special Issue on Developmental Robotics

Guest Editors 
Douglas Blank 
Lisa Meeden

Developmental robotics is a new approach that focuses on the
autonomous self-organization of general-purpose control systems. It
takes its inspiration from developmental psychology and developmental
neuroscience. Developmental robotics is a move away from task-specific
methodologies where a robot is designed to solve a particular
pre-defined task (such as path planning to a goal location). This new
approach explores the kinds of behaviors that a robot can discover
through self-motivated actions based on its own physical morphology
and the dynamic structure of its environment. Initially a
developmental system might bootstrap itself with some innate
knowledge, but with experience could create more complex
representations and behaviors. Developmental robotics is different
from many learning and evolutionary systems in that the reinforcement
signal, teacher target, or fitness function comes from within the
system. In this manner, these systems are designed to rely more on
mechanisms such as intrinsic motivation or homeostasis.

We invite contributions on architectures for developmental robotics,
examples of developmental behavior in robots, as well as features or
mechanisms of developmental processing including, but not limited to:
self-organization, self-exploration, self-motivation, categorization,
value systems, and anticipation-driven
learning.

For more information on developmental robotics see: 
http://DevelopmentalRobotics.org

Submission Instructions and Deadlines

Papers should follow the Connection Science guidelines:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/ccosauth.asp

Papers should be emailed as a PDF attachment to dblank at cs.brynmawr.edu
and meeden at cs.swarthmore.edu, the guest editors.

September 15, 2005    Papers due
October 15, 2005      Reviews returned to authors
November 15, 2005     Final versions of papers due

The special issue will be published in the first quarter of 2006.