Connectionists: CFP: From sensing machine to sensorimotor control

[Agostino Gibaldi]

Dear Researcher,

Since the deadline is approaching quickly (22^nd of February) we remind 
you that the PSPC Lab (www.pspc.unige.it <http://www.pspc.unige.it>) is 
organizing the Special Session *"From sensing machine to sensorimotor 
control"*, within the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks 
(www.ijcnn2013.org <http://www.ijcnn2013.org>), to be held in Dallas, 
Texas, August 4-9, 2013.

The session is intended to be a follow-up of the EC-FP7 project EYESHOTS 
(www.eyeshots.it <http://www.eyeshots.it>).

The Special Session (see below for a more detailed description) aims to 
investigate how the mutual influence between the perception of the 
environment and the interaction with it can be extended to support 
co-evolution mechanisms of perceptual and motor processes. We would be 
glad to receive a contribution from you in the form of a short paper (8 
pages). All the received contributions will be refereed by a panel of 
experts according to the policies of the IJCNN conference.

We apologies if you receive multiple copies of this call.

Regards,

Agostino Gibaldi

*From sensing machine to sensorimotor control*

Following the recent evolution of robotics and AI in different fields of 
application, the increasing complexity of the actions that an artificial 
agent needs to perform, is directly dependent on the complexity of the 
sensory information that it can acquire and interpret, /i.e./ perceive.

 From this point of view, an efficient and internal representation of 
the sensory information is at the base of a robot to *develop a 
human-like capability* of interaction with the surrounding environment. 
Particularly in the space at a reachable distance, not only visual and 
auditory, but also tactile and proprioceptive information rise to be 
relevant to gain a comprehensive spatial cognition. This information, 
coming from different senses, can be in principle used to experience an 
*awareness of the environment* both to actively *interact* with it, and 
to *calibrate* the interaction itself. Besides, the early sensory and 
sensorimotor mechanisms, that at a first glance may appear simple 
processes, are grounded on highly structured and complex algorithms that 
are far from being understood and modeled. By directly *integrating 
sensing modules and motor control*, the loop between action and 
perception comes to be not just closed at system level, but shortened at 
an inner one.

The aim of this special session is to challenge the development of 
methodologies, concepts, algorithms and techniques that would serve as 
bricks on which to build and develop a *sensing machine*, i.e. an 
artificial agent capable of human-like behaviours. We invite original 
contributions that provide novel solutions addressing theoretical or 
practical aspects of computer vision, multidimensional signal 
processing,neural computation and modeling, machine learning, neural 
networks, and computational intelligence to be applied to sensory 
representation, sensorimotor interaction, embodied learning. The 
action-perception loop has never been so close!


Agostino Gibaldi, PhD             agostino.gibaldi at unige.it

PostDoc at the PSPC Research Group   (http://pspc.unige.it/)

University of Genova, Via Opera Pia, 11°, 16145 Genova (IT)

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