[alife] CFP: Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication III

[Paul Vogt]

***Apologies for cross-posting***
***Please distribute to whom might be interested***

Third Intl. Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic
Communication (EELC III). http://bdc.brain.riken.go.jp/eelc2006/  

Rome, Italy, 30 Sept. - 1 Oct. 2006.

As part of the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB) conference
http://www.sab06.org/ 

Invited Speakers:
Peter Gardenfors (Lund University, Sweden), 
Naoto Iwahashi (ATR, Japan),
Elena Lieven (Max Planck Institute, Germany),
Eörs Szathmáry (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)

Scope of the Workshop
Language is generally considered as the hallmark of human intelligence. One
important way to study why this is the case, is to investigate how
linguistic communication has evolved. In the past decade, this research area
has received a lot of attention from the scientific community and could be
considered as one of the main areas of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive
Science. The EELC III workshop will focus on empirical and modelling
research on the emergence of symbol grounding and other aspects of
linguistic communication in language evolution and language acquisition. The
key questions relate to how symbolic communication can emerge from
interactions of individuals with their environment, including other
individuals, and how such communication can become meaningful to the
individual or population. Research methods that are used to study these
issues include experimental and observational studies on child language
acquisition and animal communication; theoretical and computational
modelling; and (robotic) simulations of adaptive behaviour. The workshop
aims to provide leading scientists in the interdisciplinary area of language
evolution and language acquisition a platform to present their latest
results and discuss areas of further research. 

Until about 15 years ago, there was very little productive research in the
study of language evolution. However, with the increased advancements of
computational techniques and other empirical methods, the field of language
evolution has grown to become one of the major research areas in cognitive
science. While the field is largely interdisciplinary with contributions
from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, biology, anthropology,
philosophy and computer science, the latter has proven to be among the most
influential disciplines. A reason for this is that empirical evidence on
language evolution is scarce and computer simulations offer a good testbed
for investigating hypotheses. One of the major driving forces for language
evolution is often considered to be language acquisition. Language can be
transmitted over subsequent generations if individuals can learn language.
Moreover, it has been claimed that the stages of children’s language
acquisition mirrors the stages of language evolution. So, the current EELC
will not only look at studies on the evolution of language, but also at
studies on language acquisition. 

Although many computer simulations take the emergence of symbol grounding
for granted, recently there has been an increase in studies that focus on
issues relating to the emergence of grounded communication systems. The EELC
III will therefore have 'adaptive approaches to symbol grounding and beyond'
as its central theme, though contributions are not limited to this theme.


EELC Symposium Series
This workshop is the third edition of the successful workshop on the
Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication. The first one was held
in 2004 in Kanazawa (Japan) under the auspices of the Japanese Society for
Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) and the second one in Hatfield (United
Kingdom) under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Artificial
Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB). Details of the second EELC
are found on http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/˜comqcln/EELC05.html. The
Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic
Communication will be part of the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior
conference. The coincidence with SAB permits a better exchange with other
researchers working in the simulation of adaptive behaviour field.

Submission of Papers
We invite papers of maximum 12 A4 pages that fit within the scope of the
workshop. All papers should be submitted electronically in PDF to paulv 'at'
ling.ed.ac.uk and formatted according to the instructions given at
http://bdc.brain.riken.go.jp/eelc2006/. All submissions will be acknowledged
and refereed by the international scientific programme committee. The
proceedings will be published as a LNCS/LNAI series by Springer. 

Important Dates
Deadline for submissions: 30 Apr. 2006
Notification of acceptance: 2 Jun. 2006
Camera ready copies: 30 Jun. 2006
Workshop (1st day): 30 Sep. 2006
Workshop (2nd day): 1 Oct. 2006

Program Chairs:
Paul Vogt (Tilburg University, The Netherlands), Chair; 
Yuuya Sugita (RIKEN BSI, Japan), Co-Chair; 
Elio Tuci (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium), Co-Chair; 
Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire, UK), Co-Chair

Program Committee:
Takaya Arita (University of Nagoya, Japan), 
Tony Belpaeme (University of Plymouth, UK), 
Bart de Boer (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), 
Angelo Cangelosi (University of Plymouth, UK), 
Tecumseh Fitch (University of St. Andrews, UK), 
Takashi Hashimoto (JAIST, Japan), 
Jim Hurford (University of Edinburgh, UK), 
Takashi Ikegami (University of Tokyo, Japan), 
Simon Kirby (University of Edinburgh), 
Caroline Lyon (University of Hertfordshire, UK), 
Davide Marocco (ISTC, National Research Council, Italy), 
Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire, UK), 
Stefano Nolfi (ISTC, National Research Council, Italy), 
Kazuo Okanoya (RIKEN BSI, Japan), 
Tetsuo Ono (Future University Hakodate, Japan), 
Domenico Parisi (ISTC, National Research Council, Italy), 
Akito Sakurai (Keio University, Japan), 
Andrew Smith (University of Edinburgh, UK), 
Kenny Smith (University of Edinburgh, UK), 
Luc Steels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium), 
Yuuya Sugita (RIKEN BSI, Japan), 
Jun Tani (RIKEN BSI, Japan), 
Satoshi Tojo (JAIST, Japan), 
Elio Tuci (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium), 
Paul Vogt (Tilburg University, The Netherlands)