Every intelligent ghost must contain an information-processing machine.

MAIN OBJECTIVES:

There also can be, and has been, inspiration in the reverse direction, which has not been so widely recognized (illustrated here).

The symposium is an opportunity for researchers on both sides of the natural/artificial cognition divide, including biologists studying animal cognition, to acknowledge and evaluate past examples of AI-inspired biology, to report on ongoing projects, and above all to identify opportunities for new ways in which advances in our understanding of natural/biological cognition can be or need to be inspired by concepts, problems, theories and techniques from AI/Robotics, including analysis of requirements for human-like or animal-like robots.

Such advances could include: inspiring new research on cognition in humans and other animals, helping us to understand what such cognition achieves, identifying the roles of relevant features of the environment, explaining how the competences evolved, or how they develop in individuals, and proposing new information-processing mechanisms or architectures, better able to explain types of natural cognition.

Cognition in this context also includes affective processing such as motive generation, motive selection, detection of threats and opportunities and impacts on control of attention, or priorities.

Although the primary objective is to illustrate ways in which AI can influence research on natural cognition, we expect such influences to provide tests of the generality and power of AI theories as applied to artificial cognition.

MORE SPECIFIC FOCUS

• identifying and analysing important questions about natural cognition

• using ideas from Computing and AI (especially Artificial Cognition) to help drive or extend research in this area
  e.g. on birds, primates, octopuses and humans of all ages, including humans with cognitive abnormalities,

• implications of AI, including artificial cognition, for research on
  • aspects of evolution of cognition,
  • development of cognition,
  • natural information-processing architectures,
  • brain mechanisms,
  • cognitive processes in social behaviours of various kinds.

• lessons to be learnt for artificial cognition from attempts to use AI in understanding natural cognition.

BACKGROUND -- PREVIOUS EVENTS

The EU Cognitive Systems and Robotics initiative is also relevant.

There have been previous workshops and tutorials closely related to this one.

More information about background/context and previous events is here.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

• Prof Kim Bard, Portsmouth University
• Prof Margaret Boden, Sussex University
  (Will lead the "where next" discussion in the closing session.)
• Prof Nick Chater (UCL)
• Dr. Richard P Cooper, Reader, Birkbeck College London "New ideas about cognitive control (Provisional topic)"
• Prof Richard L. Lewis, University of Michigan
• Prof Antje Meyer, Birmingham University
• Dr. Leonid I. Perlovsky, Harvard University and The Air Force Research Laboratory (Will talk about music)
• Dr. Anil Seth Reader, School of Informatics, University of Sussex (Provisional: will talk about consciousness.)
• Prof Murray Shanahan, Imperial College London.

• Plenary talk for the AISB10 Convention Relevant to this Symposium
  will be given by Giorgio Metta LIRA-Lab, University of Genova; and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa.
  Title: From biology to robots: the RobotCub project

• No longer able to attend (but may be replaced by a colleague):
  Prof Nicky Clayton, Cambridge University See bird tango (the movie).

  Prof Clayton has provided a paper relevant to the symposium here.
  Are Animals Stuck in Time or Are They Chronesthetic Creatures?
  N. S. Clayton, J. Russell, A. Dickinson

There will also be a two-day symposium on Mathematical Cognition on the first two days of the AISB'10 convention (29-30th March), which should complement this symposium usefully.
See http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/apease/aisb10/home.html

CO-CHAIRS (Original Proposers)

Biosciences

• Jackie Chappell (Biology)
  [Symposium Chair and Chief Editor: Symposium Proceedings]
  Email: j.m.chappell@bham.ac.uk
  School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham
• Susannah Thorpe (Biomechanicist)
  Email s.k.thorpe@bham.ac.uk
  School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham

AI/Robotics/Philosophy

• Nick Hawes (AI/Robotics)
  Email: N.A.Hawes@cs.bham.ac.uk
  School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham
• Aaron Sloman (Philosophy/AI/Robotics)
  [Responsible for publicity.]
  Email A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk
  School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham

SYMPOSIUM COMMITTEE

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (Deadlines)

Provisional dates are here.

Papers can be about problems in understanding natural cognition that require contributions from AI/Robotics, or about work in AI/Robotics that has relevance to problems in understanding natural cognition.

The symposium is about roles for AI in contributing to research on natural cognition, as opposed to research that attempts to imitate or apply aspects of how organisms work (e.g. their morphology, their neural mechanisms, their information processing architectures, their development, etc.) to solve engineering problems.

The contributions can include identification of new biological/psychological research questions prompted by design considerations in AI, or new 'design' questions prompted by empirical research on humans or other animals.

Contributions can also include lessons to be learnt for artificial cognition from attempts to use AI in understanding natural cognition.

All submissions must include a short explanation of how they serve the aims of the symposium.

EXAMPLE TOPICS

PRIORITIES FOR THE SYMPOSIUM

Please check this page in the first week of September for more detailed
information about submission of papers and poster abstracts,
and criteria for selection.

We particularly welcome poster submissions from PhD students interested in this area.

• Summary announcement/poster (PDF)
• Original proposal (Plain text)

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

POST-SYMPOSIUM WEB SITE

Presentations given at the symposium, will also be made available on this web site.

Contributors will be able to submit revised versions of papers and abstracts after the symposium, to be installed on the web site.

Whether there will be any other form of publication will be decided after the symposium.

It may also be possible to add comments from participants at the symposium.

Last updated: 17 Nov 2009; 10 Dec 2009; 8 Jan 2010; 14 Jan 2010; 17 Jan 2010; 21 Jan 2010; 26 Jan 2010
Installed: 30 Jul 2009
Maintained by Aaron Sloman
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham

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