*Also available in PDF

Fifth International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics:
Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems

July 22-24, 2005 Nara, Japan
Extended Submission Deadline:
March 28th, 2005

 
In the past 4 years, the Epigenetic Robotics annual workshop has established itself as a unique place where original research combining developmental psychology, neuroscience, biology, and robotics 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 includes the two-fold goal of understanding biological systems by the interdisciplinary integration between social and engineering sciences and, simultaneously, that of enabling robots and artificial systems to develop skills for any particular environment instead of programming them for solving particular goals in specific environments.

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

 
Workshop themes include, but are not limited to:
  • The development of: concepts, emotion, imitation, intentionality, intersubjectivity, joint attention, learning, motivation, non-verbal and verbal communication, sensorimotor schemata, shared meaning and symbolic reference, social learning, social relationships, social understanding ("mind reading", "theory of mind"), value systems;

  • The role of motivations, emotions, and value systems in development;

  • Interaction between innate structure, ongoing developing structure, and experience;
  • Related issues in algorithms, robotics, simulated robots, and embodied systems;
  • Related issues from human and nonhuman empirical studies

    • This year, we particularly encourage submissions dealing with imitation, joint attention, non-verbal and pre-verbal communication, autonomous cognitive development, coming from developmental psychology, biology, neurophysiology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

    For summaries of the papers from the latest workshops please see:
    Zlatev and Balkenius (2001), Prince (2002), Berthouze and Prince (2003), and Berthouze and Metta(2004).

    These papers are available at http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org/about.html.
       
    Modes of Submission
      (1) Abstract Submission where authors submit one-page abstract. After the review, selected authors will be invited to present a poster.
    Posters will be allocated 1 or 2 pages in the Proceedings.

    (2) Regular Submission comprising four-page extended abstract.
    Based on the review, selected authors will be invited to submit either:
    - a full paper (max 8-page paper in Proceedings);
    - a short paper (max 4-page paper in Proceedings); or
    - a poster (2-pages paper in Proceedings).

    All submissions should be sent as PDF files to workshop co-chair Luc Berthouze (Luc.Berthouze@aist.go.jp).

     
    Important Dates
      March 28th, 2005: Extended Submission Deadline
    May 1st, 2005: Notification of acceptance for papers and posters
    May 16th, 2005: Early-registration begins
    June 1st, 2005: Deadline for camera- ready papers & posters
    July 22-24th, 2005: Workshop
     
    Special Issue
      Authors of a selection of the best papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their manuscript to the Special Issue on Autonomous Mental Development at IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/TEC_AMD_CFP.htm). If selected, the invited authors are expected to augment the papers by about 20% or more in content.
     
    Please send any questions to the workshop chair:
        Hideki Kozima (xkozima@nict.go.jp).
        Fax: +81-6-6376-2362