Connectionists: Call for papers - Workshop on Motor development (Bristol, UK, 3-6 April 2006)

[Luc Berthouze]

Call for Papers: Motor Development
http://www.neurosci.aist.go.jp/~berthouz/MotDev.html

April 5th-6th 2006

A symposium part of the AISB 2006 conference
University of Bristol, Bristol, England

Call for Papers

The motor activity of an organism is one of its primary means of  
interacting with, and operating on, its environment. As such, its  
development is key to its cognitive development and, indeed,  
developmental psychology has shown both processes to be tightly coupled.
In embodied robotics and cognitive modeling, however, these processes  
have been mostly treated in isolation with systems either evolving  
higher cognitive processes, or acquiring new motor skills. The  
motivation of this symposium is that understanding, and simulating,  
the mechanisms underlying motor development is necessary to implement  
an ecologically-balanced development of the system.
This interdisciplinary symposium aims to bring together researchers  
from neuroscience, developmental psychology, computer science and  
robotics to examine the latest advances in the area, and delineate  
new strategies.

Submissions

We invite abstracts on any subject within the area of motor  
development. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:
- Motor development in animals and humans: studies, models and theories
- Motor development in robots: issues, models, experiments or  
simulations
- Evolutionary developmental biology and motor development
- Critical periods of motor development
- Pathologies of motor development
- Interplay between motor and cognitive development
- Degree of freedom problem
- U-shape development
- Emergence of new skills
- Role of caregiver in skill acquisition

Accepted abstracts will be presented orally on the day and appear in  
the published workshop proceedings.
Extended abstracts of between 1 and 2 pages should be submitted as  
PDF files to Luc.Berthouze at aist.go.jp by 13th January 2006.
Selected papers will be invited for publication in a special issue of  
a journal. Further details will be available soon.

Organiser

             Luc Berthouze, AIST Neuroscience Research Institute, Japan

Programme Committee (confirmed members)

             Luc Berthouze, AIST Neuroscience Research Institute, Japan
             Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College, UK
             Eugene Goldfield, Children's Hospital Boston, USA
             Giorgio Metta, Genoa University, Italy
             Claes Van Hofsten, Uppsala University, Sweden

Important dates

             Submissions of papers by :     13 Jan 06
             Notification of decision:            01 Feb 06
             Camera ready copies by:        20 Feb 06

Up-to-date information at: http://www.neurosci.aist.go.jp/~berthouz/ 
MotDev.html


-------------------

Dr. Luc Berthouze, Senior Research Scientist,
Neuroscience Research Institute (AIST 2)
Umezono 1-1-1, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan
Tel: +81-298-61-5369 Fax: +81-298-61-5841
Email: Luc.Berthouze at aist.go.jp