June 2014
Autonomous
Mental Development
Technical Committee (AMDTC)
Chair: Matthew Schlesinger
Vice-Chairs: Yukie Nagai
Erol Sahin
AMDTC Members
2013 November
78 Members
North America: 22
Latin America: 1
Europe: 37
Africa: 0
Asia: 16
Oceania: 2
Male: 63, Female: 15
2014 June
47 Members
North America: 14
Latin America: 0
Europe: 27
Africa: 0
Asia: 6
Oceania: 0
Male: 37, Female: 10
Members from Industry: 6
Members from Industry: 3
New Members: 10 (-27)
New Members: 0 (-30)
AMDTC Main Conference Statistics
ICDL: IEEE International Conference on Development
and Learning (with EpiRob since 2011)
Year
Location
06
Bloomington
07
London
08 Monterey
Attendance
113
09 Shanghai
12 San Diego
117
144
112
13
Osaka
123
14
Genoa
10 Ann Arbor
11
Frankfurt
15 Providence
16
Paris
Accepted
/Submitted
93/110 (84%)
59/105 (56%)
59/120 (49%)
55/71 (77%)
54/81 (67%)
100/119 (84%)
61/91 (65%)
54/77 (70%)
Oral
Poster
SS1
Workshops
41
31
51
28
7
3
3
Tutorials Comp2
6
1
2
44
25
75
22 39+51
5
5
2
1
21
3
3
33
Notes on 2012 acceptance rate:
65% = 61 out of 91 full paper submissions (22 talks, 39 posters)
Other 51 accepted as 2-page abstracts (19 submitted as 2-page only)
Plans for 2015 and 2016: A formal proposal for ICDL-EpiRob 2015 was submitted to the
CIS in June 2014, to be hosted at Providence, Rhode Island. For 2016, Paris has been
nominated, and the onsite organizing committee is being formed.
ICDL-Epirob 2014
October 13th-16th
Genoa, ITALY
1 day workshop/tutorials
2½ days main conference
(Mon-Thu)
ICDL-EpiRob 2014
General Chairs:
Giorgio Metta (IIT, Genoa)
Mark Lee (Univ. of Aberystwyth)
Ian Fasel (Univ. of Arizona)
Bridge Chairs:
Giulio Sandini (IIT, Genoa)
Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi (Univ. Kyoto)
Program Chairs:
Lorenzo Natale (IIT, Genoa)
Hideki Kozima, not confirmed
Publications Chairs:
Francesco Nori (IIT, Genoa)
Erol Sahin (METU, Ankara)
Publicity Chairs:
Katrin Lohan (Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh)
Gordon Cheng (TUM, Munich)
Local chairs:
Alessandra Sciutti (IIT, Genoa)
Vadim Tikhanoff (IIT, Genoa)
Finance chairs:
Andrea Derito (IIT, Genoa)
ICDL-EpiRob 2014
The Doge's Palace (Italian: Palazzo Ducale) is a
historical building in Genoa. Once the home of the
Doges of Genoa, it is now a museum and a center
for cultural events and arts exhibitions. It is
situated in the heart of the city
ICDL-Epirob 2015
August 13th-16th
Brown University
Providence, RI, USA
1 day workshops/tutorials
2½ days main conference
(Thu-Sun)
ICDL-EpiRob 2015
General Chairs:
Matthew Schlesinger (Southern Illinois University)
Dima Amso (Brown University)
Bridge Chairs:
Jeffrey Krichmar (U.C. Irvine)
Bertram Malle (Brown University)
Program Chairs:
Clemént Moulin-Frier (INRIA)
Lisa Meeden (Swarthmore) not confirmed
Publications Chairs:
Anne Warlaumont (U.C. Merced)
Publicity Chairs:
Lola Canamero (University of Hertfordshire)
Matthias Rolf (Bielefeld University) not confirmed
Local chairs:
Thomas Serre (Brown University)
David Sobel (Brown University)
Finance chair:
TBA
ICDL-EpiRob 2015
March 9th, 2015, paper submission deadline
May 15th, 2015, author notification
July 1st, 2015, final version (camera ready) due
August 13th-16th, 2015, conference
ICDL-EpiRob 2015
Providence (RI) is home to several museums, including the
RISD Museum, part of the famed Rhode Island School of
Design; the John Brown House Museum, a landmark from the
18th century; and the Governor Henry Lippitt House
Museum, an American National Historic Landmark. Theaters,
galleries, outdoor adventures and more make Providence a
place to get up and go. Providence's signature event is
WaterFire, an award-winning fire sculpture installation on the
three rivers in downtown Providence.
ICDL-EpiRob 2016
• Organizers in Paris have accepted the
nomination and are preparing the
proposal
Highlights/Plans for 2014
• WCCI-IJCNN 2014
• AMDTC Special Session on
“Cognition and Development”
• ICDL-EpiRob 2014 (Genoa)
• New Book
• Cangelosi A. & Schlesinger M. (2014).
Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots.
Cambridge MA: MIT Press
TC Chair’s Plan in 2014
1. Reduced size of TFs:
- from 77 (2013) to 47 (2014) members
2. Individual TF webpages designed/launched
2. Support TAMD journal
- Special Issues, Outstanding Award
3. Continue integration of ICDL and EpiRob communities
- Genoa = 4th joint meeting
- Establish a joint Governing Body
4. TC name change
- Recommendations/report from ad-hoc committee
Agenda 2014 TC Meeting
To be conducted at the October 2014 Conference (Genoa)
1. TC Name change
•
Discuss recommendations of ad-hoc committee
2. Conference
•
•
Joint ICDL-EpiRob to continue with Providence 2015
Merging of ICDL GB and EpiRob Steering
3. IEEE TAMD
•
•
State and update on new impact factor
Best Paper Prize
4. AMDTC TFs
•
Reassess number, size, and productivity of TFs
AMDTC Task Forces
TF Name
Chair
Action and Perception
Jun Tani
AMD Newsletter
Piere-Yves Oudeyer
Developmental Psychology
Thomas R. Shultz
Education
Katherina Rohlfing
Human-Robot Interaction
Tony Belpaeme
Language and Cognition
Katerina Pastra
Robotics
Minoru Asada
Web Presence
TBA
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/1)
Action and Perception
Chair: Jun Tani (Korea)
Vice-Chair(s): Giorgio Metta (Italy)
Members:
Bruno Lara (Spain)
Gordon Chen (German)
Erhan Oztop (Turkey)
Stefano Nolfi (Italy)
Tetsuya Ogata (Japan)
Jochen Triesch (German)
Albert Ali Salah (Turkey)
Activities in the first half of 2014
1. The iCub workshop at ICRA in Hong Kong in June 2014 organized by
Giorgio Metta was supported by the technical committee.
2. Jochen Triesch and his colleagues are organizing the 19th Advanced
Course in Computational Neuroscience, which will be held in Frankfurt,
Germany during August 3-30.
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
TF Newsletter
Chair: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (France) (chair and editor)
Members:
Fabien Bénureau (France) (associate editor)
Activities in 2014:
• Two issues of the Newsletter (Spring and Fall)
• Each newsletter contains the following section: Editorial, Message from the
AMD TC Chair, Dialog (and Dialog initiation for next issue), Reports of AMD
related conferences/workshops, Call for papers and participation, Table of
contents of IEEE TAMD articles (with abstracts)
• A central piece of the newsletter is the dialog column. The editor solicits
a well-known researcher to propose a dialog on a topic of
interdisciplinary interest to the AMD community, and then solicits
answers from key relevant researchers.
• The Newsletter is sent electronically to around 1500 researchers (AMD
mailing list), and available in open-access on the internet.
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2)
TF Newsletter
Fall 2013 dialog:
Initiation by Peter Ford Dominey: How are Grammatical Constructions Linked to
Embodied Meaning Representations?
Discussants: Brian McWhinney, W. Croft, A. Knott, M. Arbib and V. Barres, J. Weng
http://www.cse.msu.edu/amdtc/amdnl/AMDNL-V10-N2.pdf
Spring 2014 dialog:
Initiation by Katerian Pastra: Autonomous Acquisition of Sensorimotor Experiences:
Any Role for Language?
Discussants: Rick Dale, Katharina Rohlfing, Katrin Lohan, Benjamin Koch, Alessandra
Sciutti, Gary Lupyan, Catriona Silvey, Kerstin Fisher, Emmanuel Dupoux
https://www.dropbox.com/s/trfrsn4tg54hq4r/amd_newsletter.pdf
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
Developmental Psychology
Chair: Thomas R. Shultz
Members:
Gedeon O. Deák
Sylvain Sirois
Michael Thomas
Gert Westermann
Deputy Chair: Denis Mareschal
Brian Scassellati
Linda B. Smith
Jochen Triesch
Matthew Schlesinger
John P. Spencer
Kim Plunkett
Activities in 2014:
1. Linda Smith and colleagues published these paper covering robotic
models of child development phenomena.
Oudeyer, P., & Smith, L.B. (in press) How Evolution may work through
Curiosity-driven Developmental Process. Topics in Cognitive Science.
Grzyb, B. J., Del Pobil, A. P., & Smith, L. B. (2012). How walking influences
the development of absolute distance perception. In From Animals to
Animats 12 (pp. 65-74). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2)
Developmental Psychology
Chair: Thomas R. Shultz
Members:
Gedeon O. Deák
Sylvain Sirois
Michael Thomas
Gert Westermann
Deputy Chair: Denis Mareschal
Brian Scassellati
Linda B. Smith
Jochen Triesch
Matthew Schlesinger
John P. Spencer
Kim Plunkett
Activities in 2014:
Those two papers will be part of planned workshop, "Pathways of
Cognitive Development" workshop at ICDL/EpiRob in Genoa.
2. Together with Minoru Asada and Matthias Rolf, Matthew Schlesinger and
Jochen Triesch are organizing a pre-conference workshop entitled
"Computational Models of Infant Development“ on July 2, 2014. It will be
co-located with the ICIS conference in Berlin. For details see:
http://www.er.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/icis2014-preconference/
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
TF Education
Chair: Katharina J. Rohlfing (Germany)
Vice-Chair(s): Vadim Tikhanoff (Italy)
Members:
Gustaf Gredebäck (Sweden)
Juyang Weng (USA)
Chen Yu (USA)
Jun Tani (South Korea)
Yulia Sandamirskaya (Germany)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
1. Dialogue initiation „Trained on everything“: Discussion about
interdisciplinary education
2. Virtual courses in Developmental Robotics with experts planned for Fall
2014
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2)
TF Education (2)
Dialogue initiation TAMD Newsletter:
Discussion on interdisciplinary education is initiated in the current TAMD Newsletter
Virtual class room:
Currently:
Syllabus for virtual seminar
Soliciting teachers / experts and testing software for live courses within the virtual
classroom
Advertizing virtual seminar at the ICDL 2014
Fall 2014:
First virtual seminar in Developmental Robotics
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
1. TF member Brian Scassellati is co-chairing the Cognitive Science conference in
2014. The conference pans a joint robotics exhibition that spans both Cognitive
Science and AAAI (which is co-located).
2. The TF was intensely involved in the organisation and the directing of the
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. HRI2013
(Tokyo, Japan, 3-6 March 2013) and HRI2014 (Bielefeld, Germany, 3-6 March
2014). http://humanrobotinteraction.org
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
3. TF member Yukie Nagai organized the Workshop on "HRI: a bridge between
Robotics and Neuroscience" at HRI2014. The goal of the workshop was to bridge
the gap between HRI studies and cognitive modelling and developmental
modelling studies.
4. TF member Verena Hafner co-organised the German-Israeli Minerva School on
Cognitive
Robotics,
February
24-27,
2014
in
Berlin,
Germany
(http://minerva2014.de) and the Dagstuhl Seminar on Spatial Reference in the
Semantic Web and in Robotics, March 31-April 4, 2014 at Schloss Dagstuhl,
Germany (http://www.dagstuhl.de/de/programm/kalender/semhp/?semnr=14142).
Task Force Report for June 2014 (3/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
5. TF chair Belpaeme gave a lecture series on “Cognition, Social Interaction and
Cognitive Robots”at the Interdisciplinar College (IK2014, Germany,
http://www.interdisciplinary-college.de/).
6. TF member Hafner presented at the Workshop on „Attention Models in
Robotics: Visual Systems for Better HRI“, HRI2014, Bielefeld, Germany (March 3,
2014). )
7. TF member Fischer will publish a book on “Designing Speech for a Recipient”
in which she analyses the mechanisms of formulating for a particular
communication partner by comparing speech to children, to foreigners and to
robots.
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Chair: Katerina Pastra (CSRI, Greece)
Vice-Chair(s): Nikolaos Mavridis (New York Uni., United Arab Emirates)
Members:
Yiannis Aloimonos (U. Maryland - Cognitive Vision, USA)
Jean-Christophe Baille (Aldebaran Robotics – Language Learning, France)
Anna Borghi (U. Bologna - Language and Embodied Cognition, Italy)
Angelo Cangelosi (U. Plymouth – Language-Action Learning, U.K.)
Daniel Casasanto (Max Planck Inst. Psycholinguistics - Language& Metaphor, Netherlands)
Stephen Cowley (U. Hertfordshire – Distributed Language Perspective, U.K.)
Stefano Nolfi (CNR - Robotics and Language, Italy)
Katharina Rohlfing (U. Bielefeld - Language meaning development, Germany)
Yulia Sandamirskaya (U.Bochum – Theory of Cognitive Systems, Germany)
Stephanie Tellex (MIT - Human Robot Interaction and Language, USA)
Email Address of the group: ieee_lcog_group@csri.gr
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Activities in first semester 2014 for IEEE Language & Cognition:
1. Organisation of a Symposium in AISB 2014 entitled:
“Embodied vs. Simulated Behaviour and Cognition: What could Robotics contribute to
Language Sciences?”
Organisers: K. Pastra, S. Cowley, N. Mavridis
Invited Speakers: Prof. Roger Moore (Univ. Sheffield) and Prof. Paul Vogt (Univ.
Tilburg)
http://www.csri.gr/index.php/en/news/128-aisb50-embosim.html
2. Organisation of a Tutorial in LREC 2014 entitled:
“When Semantic Language Resources meet Cognitive Systems”
Tutor: K. Pastra
http://www.csri.gr/index.php/en/news/129-lrec2014-semcog.html
Task Force Report for June 2014 (3/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Activities in first semester 2014 for IEEE Language & Cognition:
3. IEEE CIS-AMD Newsletter Dialogue Initiation (published in Fall 2013 with
replies in Spring 2014) :
“Autonomous Acquisition of Sensorimotor Experiences: Any role for Language?”
Initiator: K. Pastra
Replies by: R. Dale (Uni. Of California), E. Dupoux (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales), K. Fischer (Uni. Of Southern Denmark), G. Lupyan (Uni. Of
Wisconsin-Madison), K. Rohlfing (Uni. Of Bielefeld) and C. Silvey (Uni. Of
Edinburg)
http://www.csri.gr/index.php/en/news/130-ieee-cis-amd-dialogue.html
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/1)
TF Robotics
Chair: Minoru Asada (Japan)
Vice-Chair(s): Giorgio Metta (Italy)
Members:
Luc Berthouze (UK)
Gordon Cheng (Germany)
Yiannis Demiris (UK)
Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japan)
Yasuo Kuniyoshi (Japan)
Tetsuya Ogata (Japan)
Rolf Pfeifer (Switzerland)
Activities in 2014 for Robotics:
1. Giorgio Metta and Giulio Sandini (Robotics TF) will organize ICDL-EpiRob
2014 in Genoa during October 13 – 16, 2014.
2. Hiroshi Ishiguro, Rolf Pfeifer, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi (Robotics TF) will organize
a workshop on Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics (tentative) during ICDLEpiRob 2014.