BCS-SGAI 2010 Conference Workshop:
   Bio-inspired and Bio-Plausible Cognitive Robotics
   http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~jlw/cognitive-robotics-workshop.html

December 14, Peterhouse, Cambridge
Stream 1 10.30-12.30 and 13.15-14.45

Organisers:
   Angelo Cangelosi (Plymouth University)
   Jeremy Wyatt (Birmingham University)

Bio-inspired cognitive robotics aims at the design of artificial
cognitive systems (e.g. humanoid robots, mobile robots) by taking
direct inspiration from disciplines investigating behaviour and
cognition in natural cognitive systems (humans, other animals). For
example, empirical evidence and investigations in cognitive
psychology, developmental psychology, behavioural neuroscience and
computational neuroscience can directly inform the design of the
control systems of robots for tasks regarding vision, action,
language and social cognition. In particular, this bio-inspired
approach to cognitive robotics is consistent with recent advances
embodied in psychology and neuroscience. Both approaches share the
idea that in both natural and artificial cognitive systems,
cognitive capabilities are intertwined with the s own embodied
interaction with the environment. One example is the way that action
influences perception in the brain. Bio-plausible cognitive robotics
is one way of describing a complementary field that seeks to use
robots as to test computational theories of how behaviour is
generated in biological systems.

The UK plays a significant leadership role in these fields. This
workshop has the aim of providing of overview of UK research in this
area and to identify future research challenges and directions in
the field.

Topics the meeting will address include: biologically inspired robot
control, mechanics and sensing; computational models of motor
control, perception, and learning in humans and other animals;
robotic implementations of biologically inspired and biologically
plausible models; constraints and theories of architectures for
biological control, perception, memory and learning.

Key questions include asking what robotics is able to offer studies
of cognition in humans and other animals; and what hard knowledge
the various tools for understanding human and animal behaviour can
offer robotics.

Programme

   * 10.30 Angelo Cangelosi and Jeremy Wyatt, Welcome
   * 10.30 Murray Shanahan (Imperial College), Why aren't our robots
           as clever as crows?
   * 11.00 Barbara Webb (Edinburgh University), What do insects know?
   * 11.30 Daniel Wolpert (Cambridge University), Structures and statistics
           in sensorimotor control
   * 12.00 Owen Holland (Sussex University), An anthropomimetic
           robot: construction, control and cognition
   * 12.30 Lunch break
   * 13.15 Aaron Sloman (Birmingham University), Genomes for self-
           constructing, self-modifying information processing architectures
   * 13.45 Glyn Humphreys (Birmingham University), Psychological
           mechanisms of affordance
   * 14.15 Yiannis Demiris (Imperial College), Embodied Social Cognition
   * 14.45 Final discussion and coffee


Registration:
   http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2010/?section=registration
Conference
   http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2010/
Venue and Directions:
   http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2010/?section=venue