[alife] CFP: Symposium on Evolvability and Interaction (London, 8-10 October 2003)

Tue Sep 2 12:55:05 PDT 2003

Call for Papers and Participation:

     EPSRC Network on Evolvability
   in Biological and Software Systems

           Symposium on

       EVOLVABILITY & INTERACTION:
 Evolutionary Substrates of Communication,
      Signaling, and Perception
   in the Dynamics of Social Complexity

              Sponsored by
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
      Queen Mary, University of London
University of Hertfordshire, Adaptive Systems Research Group

Dates:
  October 8-10 (Wed, Thurs, Fri), 2003

Location:
  London, England Queen Mary University of London

General Chair and Local Organizer:
 Peter McOwan (Queen Mary, London, U.K.)

Program Chairs:
 Kerstin Dautenhahn (Univ. Hertfordshire, U.K.)  
 Chrystopher L. Nehaniv (Univ. Hertfordshire, U.K.)

SCOPE

The focus of this symposium is on the relationship between evolvability
and interaction in biology, robotics and software systems. Evolvability
is the capacity of populations to support heritable variability and
differential success, as in organic, memetic or artifical evolutionary
systems. Interaction between entities (large or small populations of
cells, individuals, units of selection, social agents: animals, humans,
robots, software) is the background for and is harnessed by evolutionary
processes.  This can result in adaptation to the presence of others via
signalling and perception, communication, and exploiting the dynamics
of social interaction.

In humans, other primates, dolphins, corvid, parrots, and other
species interaction and social complexity have evolved that exploit
mechanisms of recognition of particular individuals, life-long
learning, autobiographical and interaction memory, development of social
relationships, and complex forms of social learning and communication.
Other animals exhibit interactive signaling systems (e.g.  affect,
threat and courtship displays), whereas within multicellular organisms
and insect societies the substrates of interactions exploit chemical
and stigmergic signals, or cell-type and caste roles.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

- evolution of evolvability in populations of interacting individuals 
- animal social complexity 
- the behaviour of communicating and signaling 
- affordances and ecologies of interaction 
- animal social networks and kinds of social minds 
- evolvability issues in computation and interaction 
- evolution of cognition and interaction 
- perception and recognition of others 
- emergence of higher-level phenomena through interaction 
- cultural evolution, social learning and imitation 
- interaction among social robots 
- swarm intelligence, self-organization and stigmergy 
- minimal architectures for social robotics 
- dynamics in robot-human interaction 
- cognitive constraints and the evolution of social behaviour 
- intersubjectivity and intention reading in interaction 
- development of long-term interactive relationships 
- interaction histories and autobiographic memory 
- evolution of signaling and communication 
- expression in interaction 
- social grounding of referential behaviour and language 
- Machiavellian Intelligence 
- systems and dynamical approaches to evolvability and interaction
- predictive models of evolvability in social settings
- development and dynamics of interaction 
- development and differentiation in evolving populations
   (differentiated multicellularity, social caste systems, etc.)
- others

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS BEING INVITED

 (*** Participation to be Confirmed ***)

  * = confirmed

Evolution of Communication:

 * Irene Pepperberg (social learning and communication in parrots)
   W. John Smith (communicative behaviour, intention-reading)
   Harold Gouzoules (primates)

Signaling Interactions:

   Roger T. Hanlon (signalling behaviour of cephalopods)
   Katy Payne (Elephant communication)

Cognitive Ethology:

   Donald R. Griffin (animals minds, evolutionary continuity)
   Michael Tomasello (cognition and imitation)

Robotics:

 * Kerstin Dautenhahn (social robotics and social intelligence in AI)
 * Yoshihiro Miyake (co-creation in interaction)
 * Tomio Watanabe (dynamics in man-machine interaction)
   Rodney Brooks (robotics, non-traditional media and models)
 * Auke Jan Ijspeert (neural models, evolvability of behaviour,
                    humanoid imitation)

Swarm Intelligence:

 * Guy Theraulaz (self-organisation in insects and simulation modeling)

Evolution of Social Intelligence:

 Rufus Johnstone (signaling and social behavioural ecology)

Social Development and Intersubjectivity in Interaction:

 Jacqueline Nadel (development and interaction studies in infants)

Evolution of human language:

 * Robin Dunbar (grooming, cognition, and communication in primates)

Dynamics of Evolvability:

    Magnus Enquist (evolution of behaviour, evolution of culture)
 * Richard E. Michod (evolution of individuality, cooperation, sex,
                     Darwinian dynamics)
 * Takashi Ikegami (evolutionary dynamics of interaction)

Individual Intelligence in Societies:

 *  Lars Chittka (bees) 

and others.

FOLLOW UP PUBLICATION:

Publication of selected papers in the indexed journal "Interaction Studies:
Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems"
(John Benjamins Publishers).

PARTICIPATION:

Participants who would like to present a paper or poster at the
symposium should email the pogramme chairs (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk,
C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk). See below for format details.

There is no registration fee. Particpation is open to researchers and
post-graduate students working in relevant areas. Please send an email
to the general chair Peter McOwan (pmco at dcs.qmul.ac.uk) if you would
like to attend without submitting a poster or talk.

Partial or full support of reasonable expenses is available for members
of the Evolvability network and also UK-based postgraduate students
who are presenting a paper or poster. Please inquire via email to
C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk

SUBMISSION OF CONTRIBUTED TALKS AND POSTERS:

Please email plain text abstracts (please specify poster or talk). As
a guideline, poster submissions should be around 1/2 page, submissions
for talks can be up to five pages long.