Architecture of Brain and Mind

The EC-funded euCognition network has agreed to support a two-day symposium which is part of the AISB’06 convention to be held in Bristol, UK on 3-6th April.

INVITATION TO SUBMIT A POSTER ABSTRACT, OR SIMPLY TO REGISTER

The EC-funded euCognition network has agreed to support a two-day symposium which is part of the AISB’06 convention to be held in Bristol, UK on 3-6th April. The symposium to be held on 3rd & 4th April is described here

The topic for discussion is one of the UKCRC Grand Challenges, summarised in a booklet available here and here (PDF) namely

GC5: Architecture of Brain and Mind — Integrating high level cognitive processes with brain mechanisms and functions in a working robot.

The main thrust of GC5 is to promote a combination of bottom-up, top-down and middle-out interdisciplinary research into the nature of minds (of humans, other animals and robots) and the mechanisms in brains, and the ways in which brains can support the existence and functioning of such minds. From this viewpoint minds are virtual machines running on brains, which are physical machines. There may be several intermediate layers of virtual machines.

The challenge includes understanding the requirements for minds of human-like robots (e.g. with the abilities of a child aged between one and five years) as well as investigating high level designs and brain mechanisms capable of meeting those requirements. The requirements include learning and using many different kinds of information about the environment in a creative way, including information about physical processes that can occur and processes in other intelligent agents.

The symposium will consist of a collection of invited talks, discussions, and poster sessions for which 2-page abstracts are invited by Friday 3rd Feb 2006. (Late submissions should mention the psyche-b list)

Themes for discussion at the symposium are summarised here

The (still incomplete) list of speakers is here

This symposium is part of the AISB’06 convention which consists of a collection of 2 day symposia over 4 days (3-6 April), plus invited plenary lectures. The programme for the whole 4 day conference, including the full list of symposia and the plenary lectures is here

Poster abstracts for the symposium on GC5 are invited. Apologies for late announcement. We are willing to consider late submissions, up till 10th Feb.

Authors of accepted poster abstracts will be allocated 4 pages for a summary in the symposium proceedings. Additional material may be presented via the symposium web site.

NB: The full call for Poster Abstracts for the GC5 symposium is here

Extracts from call:

• A report on a specific system under development is less likely to be accepted than an analytical discussion of specific long term requirements and how they might be met: the Grand Challenge is a vision for future research, not an exposition of today’s research.
• All accepted abstracts will, after revision, be made available on the symposium web site.
• Up to 10 of the abstracts will be selected for presentation as posters during the poster session. (There will probably not be space for more).
• The 10 abstracts selected for presentation and up to 10 additional abstracts will also be included in the printed symposium booklet.
• Subject to quality being adequate we would like to include a number of submissions from PhD students with interesting visions of how to make long term progress.
• Deadline 1: the latest date for abstract submission is Friday 3rd Feb 2006. (Late submissions should mention psyche-b)
• We hope to have selection complete by 27th Feb.
• Deadline 2: Camera-ready PDF files will be required by the Conference organisers by 13th March, so the symposium organisers will need camera ready versions (by email) by 7th March to give us time to assemble the booklet.
• Submissions will be accepted only if accompanied by a statement that if accepted the poster will be presented by the author at the conference.

EMAIL ADDRESS AND FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS

Each submission should include

• A plain text email message (i.e. not html, pdf, word, rtf, etc. — just plain text, not mime encoded) containing:

1. Author’s name (as it will appear on the printed paper if accepted)
2. If there is more than one author please identify the author for correspondence.
3. 3. Whether author is a PhD student, and, optionally, the topic of the PhD. Also email address of supervisor or other officer willing to confirm status as student.
4. Postal Address of corresponding author
5. Email address and Phone number (international format) of corresponding author. Add URL if you wish.
6. Title of poster.
7. Short abstract indicating topic (to help selection of reviewers) up to 200 words.
8. Confirmation that at least one author will attend the conference if the submission is accepted (whether as poster or as printed paper only).
9. Whether you would prefer to have the submission accepted only for the booklet, not for presentation as a poster.

NOTE:

Submitted poster abstracts have a page limit of 2 pages. Accepted abstracts will be printed in the symposium booklet with a page limit of 4 pages. So you should think about how you will expand your 2 page summary if it is accepted, as there will not be much time after notification.

• A 2 page PDF summary of the poster topic in EXACTLY the format specified by the AISB06 Convention organisers here

NOTE:

Information about poster sizes and formats will be provided later by the convention organisers.

Address for submission

Submission will be by email only. Please send your submission (Plain text email message plus PDF abstract, as specified above) simultaneously to these two addresses:

• Nick Hawes
• Aaron Sloman

Please send any enquiries about posters to Nick Hawes. Other enquiries about this symposium may be sent to Aaron Sloman.

Registration information for the convention is here

(Early registration deadline is: 6th March. After that, registration fees go up.)