ICDL-EPIROB 2014 - The Fourth Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics

The past decade has seen the emergence of a new scientific field that studies how intelligent biological and artificial systems develop sensorimotor, cognitive and social abilities, over extended periods of time, through dynamic interactions with their physical and social environments. This field lies at the intersection of a number of scientific and engineering disciplines including Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics. Various terms have been associated with this new field such as Autonomous Mental Development, Epigenetic Robotics, Developmental Robotics, etc., and several scientific meetings have been established. The two most prominent conference series of this field, the International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) and the International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics (EpiRob), are now joining forces for the fourth time and invite submissions for a joint meeting in 2014, to explore and extend the interdisciplinary boundaries of this field.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
the development of perceptual, motor, cognitive, emotional, social, and communication skills in biological systems and robots;
embodiment;
general principles of development and learning;
interaction of nature and nurture; sensitive/critical periods;
developmental stages;
grounding of knowledge and development of representations;
architectures for cognitive development and open-ended learning;
neural plasticity;
statistical learning;
reward and value systems;
intrinsic motivations, exploration and play;
interaction of development and evolution;
use of robots in applied settings such as autism therapy;
epistemological foundations and philosophical issues.
Any of the topics above can be simultaneously studied from the neuroscience, psychology or modeling/robotic point of view.
Submission Information
We accept submissions in several formats:
Full six-page paper submissions: Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings and will be selected for either an oral presentation or a featured poster presentation. Featured posters will have a 1 minute "teaser" presentation as part of the main conference session and will be showcased in the poster sessions.
Two-page poster abstract submissions: To encourage late-breaking results or for work that is not sufficiently mature for a full paper, we will accept 2-page abstracts. These submissions will NOT be included in the conference proceedings. Accepted abstracts will be presented during poster sessions.
Tutorials: We invite experts in different areas to organize a 3-hour tutorial, which will be held on the first day of the conference. Participants in tutorials are asked to register for the main conference as well. Tutorials are meant to provide insights into specific topics as well as overviews that will inform the interdisciplinary audience about the state-of-the-art in child development, neuroscience, robotics, or any of the other disciplines represented at the conference. Submission format: two pages.
Special sessions: A special session will be an opportunity to present a topic cumulatively, for which format a slot of 1.5 hour will be offered. Special session organizers are invited to submit (1) a summary (250 words) describing the topic, purpose and target audience of the session as well as (2) abstracts of papers (each 250 words) that will constitute the group of presentations. It is suggested that a special session includes three oral presentations to allow for sufficient presentation and discussion time. A discussant (also from other discipline) may be added to the special session.