Connectionists: Foundations of Enactive Cognitive Science, 27-28th Feb 2012

[Etienne B. Roesch]

Dear colleagues,

We are excited to announce the organisation of the conference "Foundations of Enactive Cognitive Science", held February 27-28th, 2012. The conference is sponsored by the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, with the support of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. If you intend to participate (even if you do not plan to submit a poster or a talk), we kindly ask that you send us an email, as we need to make some arrangements with the venue.

More information at: http://reading.ac.uk/cinn/enactivism

Dr. Etienne Roesch (Goldsmiths Univ. London; Univ. of Reading)
Dr. Slawomir Nasuto (Univ. of Reading)
Prof. John Mark Bishop (Goldsmiths Univ. London)

 
The pursuit of cognitive science is concerned with the scientific study of the mind. Interdisciplinary in nature, the discipline spans philosophy, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, social sciences, biology and physics - as well as any other discipline with a perspective on the workings of the mind. From the natural evolution of the concepts that formed the building blocks of cognitive science, arose the need for an integrative account of the interaction of the organism with the world, and recent years witnessed the emergence of what is believed to be a paradigm shift in the discipline: enactive cognitive science.

Enactive cognitive science emerges from diverse research interests, and has yet to mature into a discipline on its own. It now faces the challenge of gathering these views and frameworks, which were merely critics of the classical paradigm, into cohesive research agendas: Enactive cognitive science distances itself from classical cognitivist and computational perspectives, by broadening the current focus on the brain and including the body and its relationship to the outside world.

The objective of the conference is to gather as many researchers as possible, from all disciplines, with an interest in the development and the future of enactive cognitive science.
 

Venue and accommodation – The conference will be hosted in the unique setting of the Cumberland Lodge (http://cumberlandlodge.ac.uk), in the Great Park of Windsor. Participants will have the choice to stay for the night at the Lodge, or to stay in one of the nearby accommodations. The Cumberland Lodge is genuinely conducive for these types of meetings, and we hope this will maximize interactions between participants. The Lodge is conveniently located 25 minutes away from Heathrow airport. We reserved a number of rooms at the Lodge for Monday night, and we are told there will be rooms available for Tuesday night as well. The Lodge is fully licensed, and we encourage attendees to bring along their favourite music instrument.. :)

Call for posters and talks – Posters will be on display throughout the whole conference, and submitted talks will complement invited keynote addresses. If needed, attendance certificates will be provided. If you are willing to participate, please send a title and an abstract (max. 300 words) to Dr. Etienne Roesch by January 30th (of course you can send it before that date!), stating whether you would like to present a poster or give a talk, and if you will be staying at the Lodge or make your own arrangements.

We hope to see you there!

Best regards,

Dr. Etienne Roesch
Dr. Slawomir Nasuto
Prof. John Mark Bishop