*Apologies for cross posting. Please forward to those who may be interested*

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CALL FOR PAPERS
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SOCIAL LEARNING IN EMBODIED AGENTS
AN EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICAL LIFE (ECAL 2007) WORKSHOP

LISBON, PORTUGAL, 1Oth SEPTEMBER 2007

web: http://laral.istc.cnr.it/slea/index.html
mail: slea.workshop@...


SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

Social learning refers to the process in which agents learn new skills
by interacting with other agents. It is well known that many natural
species have evolved a capacity to use information provided by other
individuals to enhance their individual skills. However, only in the
last decade researches in artificial life, adaptive behavior,
evolutionary robotics and, more generally, embodied dynamical systems
started to focus explicitly on the features and outcomes of social
learning dynamics. The artificial modeling of social learning allows
researchers to shed new lights on a wide range of phenomena that play
an important role in the evolution of complex behaviors in natural
organisms and a fundamental role in the evolution of complex behaviors
in humans. The study of social learning, the mechanisms on which it
relies, its outcomes on collective and individual behavioral dynamics
and its relationships with other adaptation processes (e.g. individual
learning, genetic evolution) represent an exciting subfield of
artificial life research.

When considering behavior as a complex outcome resulting form the
interactions between different levels such as body, nervous system,
and physical and social environment, an embodied approach to behavior
seems particularly promising for the study of social learning
phenomena as they typically depend on several hierarchical
relationship. Indeed, empirical observations, laboratory experiments
and "traditional" analytical modeling often experience difficulties in
managing that complexity.

The aim of the workshop will be twofold. A considerate number
of successful social learning models have been realized in the last
years. However, the field is still fragmented. The workshop will try to
highlight shared results and the common open issues in order to
contribute to the definition of the embodied approach to social
learning, as well as its connections with other approaches, within
Artificial Life and beyond. Moreover, the workshop will provide an
opportunity to review the recent advances on a fast developing
field relevant to many attendants of the ECAL conference.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Original papers - both tecnical and conceptual - on any aspect of
embodied social learning are welcome. Topics include, but are not
restricted to:

* Social learning and the evolution of communication
* Imitation in embodied agents
* Cultural evolutionary dynamics
* Interactions between genetic evolution, individual and social learning
* Relationship between individual behavior and populational dynamics
* Models of simple mechanisms of social learning
* Action, perception, and cognition in social interactions
* Cultural factors that affect social and individual behavior
* Niche construction in social environment
* Collective behavior in learning robot
* Teaching and scaffolding of behavior
* Dynamic role allocation
* Self organization in social learning

All submissions will undergo a peer-review. The format of the papers
should follow the ECAL 2007 style guide and should not exceed 10 pages
in camera ready PDF format. Details of the authors (names, affiliations
and email addresses) should be included in the paper. Please refer to
the ECAL style guide for details (http://www.ecal2007.org/submissions.htm).
Submissions should be send in PDF format to slea.workshop@... by
the end of 30. 4. 07.

There will be a special issue - associated to the workshop - in the
journal "Connection Science" for which a separate call for papers will
be distributed soon. Authors of accepted papers will be particularly
encouraged to submit an extended version of their workshop contribution
to this special issue. More details will come at a later stage.

TIMELINE

* full paper submission :: 30. 4. 07
* review deadline :: 26. 5. 07
* notification of acceptance :: 30. 5. 07
* camera ready submission :: 15. 6. 07

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Alberto Acerbi - Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technology, CNR,
Rome, Italy
Davide Marocco - Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technology, CNR,
Rome, Italy
Paul Vogt - Language and Information Science, Tilburg University,
Tilburg, The Netherlands

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Tony Belpaeme - University of Plymouth
Aude Billard - Ecoles Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Angelo Cangelosi - University of Plymouth
Kerstin Dautenhahn - University of Hertfordshire
Yiannis Demiris - Imperial College London
Takashi Ikegami - University of Tokio
Chrystopher Nehaniv - University of Hertfordshire
Stefano Nolfi - Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, Rome
Domenico Parisi - Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, Rome
Andrew Smith - University of Edinburgh
Elio Tuci - Universitè Libre de Bruxelles




--
Dr. Paul Vogt
ILK / Language and Information Science, Tilburg University
P.O.Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Room Y339 (Dante building)
Tel: +31 13 4663578 Fax: +31 13 4662892
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~paulv/