Connectionists: 2nd CFP for Epigenetic Robotics 2007 (Extended Deadline)

[Luc Berthouze]

Call for Papers: Epigenetic Robotics 2007 (Extended Deadline)
5-7 November 2007, Piscataway, NJ, USA

Seventh International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics:
Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems

http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org
Email: epirob07 at epigenetic-robotics.org

Location:
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,
Piscataway, NJ, USA

*Extended* Submission Deadline: 1 August 2007


Keynote Speakers:

Hod Lipson
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Computing &
Information Science, Cornell University, USA

Daniel Messinger
Department of Psychology, University of Miami, USA

Carolyn Rovee-Collier and Peter Gerhardstein (co-presenter)
Department of Psychology, Rutgers, NJ, USA (Rovee-Collier)
Department of Psychology, Binghamton University-SUNY, NY,
USA (Gerhardstein)


Conference Themes:

In the past 6 years, the Epigenetic Robotics
annual conference has established itself as a
unique place where original interdisciplinary
research from developmental sciences,
neuroscience, biology, cognitive robotics, and
artificial intelligence is being presented.

Epigenetic systems, either natural or artificial,
share a prolonged developmental process through
which varied and complex cognitive and perceptual
structures emerge as a result of the interaction
of an embodied system with a physical and social
environment.

Epigenetic robotics has goals including: (1)
understanding biological systems by the
interdisciplinary integration of social and
engineering sciences and (2) enabling robots and
other artificial systems to autonomously develop
skills for new environments (instead of
programming them to solve problems in fixed
environments).

Psychological theory and empirical evidence is
being used to inform epigenetic robotic models,
and these models can be used as theoretical tools
to make experimental predictions in developmental
psychology.

Epigenetic Robotics themes include, but are not limited to:

* The development of emotion, imitation,
synchrony processing, intersubjectivity, joint
attention, intentionality, non-verbal and verbal
communication, sensorimotor schemata, shared
meaning and symbolic reference, social learning,
social relationships, social cognition ("mind
reading", "theory of mind");
* The scope and limits of maturation, the mechanisms of open-ended  
development;
* The mechanisms of stage formation and stage transitions;
* The epistemological foundations of using robots to study development;
* The role of motivations, emotions, and value systems in development;
* Interaction between innate structure, ongoing
developing structure, and experience;
* The interplay between embodiment, learning biases and environment;
* The differences between learning and development;
* Algorithms for self-supervision, autonomous
exploration, representation making, and methods
for evolving new representations during ontogeny;
* Using robots as theoretical tools (e.g., to
make predictions) in experiments with children;
* Using robots in applied settings (e.g., autism therapy) with children;
* Architectures for autonomous development;
* Robots that can undergo morphological changes
and how they can be used to study the interplay
between cognitive and morphological development;


Important Dates:

1 August 2007:	Deadline for submission of papers & posters
12 Sept 2007:	Notification of acceptance of papers & posters
12 Oct 2007:	Deadline for camera ready papers
5-7 Nov 2007:	EpiRob07 @ Rutgers


Modes of Submission:

(1) Regular Submission (8-page max). After
review, regular submissions will either be
accepted or rejected (no revision as short papers
or posters). Regular submissions will be
allocated 8 pages in the Proceedings.

(2) Abstract Submission (1-page max). After
review, selected authors will be invited to
present a poster. Abstract submissions will be
allocated 1 page in the Proceedings.

Submission instructions will be available from
the EpiRob website:
http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org


Related Events:

IROS (Intelligent Robots and Systems)
http://www.crim.ncsu.edu/iros2007
29 October - 2 November 2007 (San Diego)


Organizing Committee:

Christian Balkenius (Lund University, Sweden)
Luc Berthouze (University of Sussex, UK)
Hideki Kozima (NICT, Japan)
Michael Littman (Rutgers, USA)
Christopher G. Prince (University of Minnesota Duluth, USA)


Program Committee:

Pierre Andry (ENSEA, France)
Minoru Asada (Osaka University, Japan)
Christian Balkenius (Cognitive Science, Lund University, Sweden)
Mark Bickhard (Lehigh University, USA)
Alexander Bernardino (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal)
Luc Berthouze (University of Sussex, UK)
Nadia Berthouze (University College London, UK)
Aude Billard (EPFL, Switzerland)
Lola Canamero (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Robert Clowes (University of Sussex, UK)
Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Yiannis Demiris (Imperial College, UK)
Luciano Fadiga (University of Ferrara, Italy)
Simone Fiori (Universit‡ Politecnica delle Marche, Italy)
Paul Fitzpatrick (CSAIL, MIT, USA)
Philippe Gaussier (Universite de Cergy-Pointoise & ENSEA, France)
Lakshmi Gogate (SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, USA)
Rod Grupen (University of Massachusetts, USA)
George Hollich (Purdue University, USA)
FrÈdÈric Kaplan (EPFL, Switzerland)
Benjamin Kuipers (University of Texas, USA)
Hideki Kozima (NICT, Japan)
Max Lungarella (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Lisa Meeden (Swarthmore college, USA)
Giorgio Metta (LIRA-Lab, Genoa, Italy)
Jacqueline Nadel (CNRS, France)
Yukie Nagai (NICT, Japan)
Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, France)
Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Christopher G. Prince (University of Minnesota Duluth, USA)
Arnaud Revel (CNRS, ENSEA, University of Cergy Pontoise, France)
Brian Scassellati (Yale University, USA)
Matthew Schlesinger (Southern Illinois University, USA)
Sylvain Sirois (Manchester University, UK)
Michael Spratling (Birkbeck College, UK)
Georgi Stojanov (SS Cyril and Methodius University, Macedonia)
Gert Westermann (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
Tom Ziemke (University of Skovde, Sweden)


For questions or more information, please contact:
epirob07 at epigenetic-robotics.org