BICA 2014 - 2014 Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA 2014)

Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) are computational frameworks for building intelligent agents that are inspired from biological intelligence. Biological intelligent systems, notably animals such as humans, have many qualities that are often lacking in artificially designed systems including robustness, flexibility and adaptability to environments. At a point in time where visibility into naturally intelligent systems is exploding, thanks to modern brain imaging and recording techniques allowing us to map brain structures and functions, our ability to learn lessons from nature and to build biologically inspired intelligent systems has never been greater. At the same time, the growth in computer science and technology has unleashed enough computational power at sufficiently low prices, that an explosion of intelligent applications from driverless vehicles, to augmented reality, to ubiquitous robots, is now almost certain. The growth in these fields challenges the computational replication of all essential aspects of the human mind (the BICA Challenge), an endeavor which is interdisciplinary in nature and promises to yield bi-directional flow of understanding between all involved disciplines.
Scope
With the scope of BICA 2014 covering all areas of BICA-related research listed below, the major thrusts will be Perception, Attention, and Language. Here the key questions are:
? What can we learn from biological systems about how perception, attention, decision making, and action work together to produce intelligent behavior that is robust in natural environments?
? What have we learned about information flow in biological systems that can aid us in building better artificial systems that combine perception, action, language, learning, and decision making in robots and intelligent agents?
? What have we learned recently about information flow in the brain that can lead to better cognitive models that combine perception, attention, decision making, action, language, and learning?
? What role is played by emotions in perception, attention, decision making, language, and learning?
? How have we, or can we incorporate into cognitive architectures new evolving understandings about flow of information in biological cognitive systems?
? What mathematical foundations are emerging today that can support perception and learning?
In addition to these focus topic areas of BICA 2014, we encourage submission of papers in all areas of BICA research, especially in the following areas.
Neuroscience:
? “B” in BICA: useful biological constraints for cognitive architectures
? Bridging the gap between artificial and natural information processing
? Cognitive and learning mechanisms informed by neuroscience
? Neural correlates of cognitive and meta-cognitive processes
? Robustness, scalability and adaptability in neuromorphic systems
? Neurophysiological underpinnings of reinforcement learning
? Physiological mechanisms of memory formation and (re)consolidation
? Representation of contextual and conceptual knowledge in neural systems
Social, Economic and Educational Sciences:
? Mixed-initiative systems based on inspirations from biology
? Agents possessing human-level social and emotional intelligence
? BICA in learning and tutoring technologies and education
? BICA models of self and their application to perception and action
? Representation, perception, understanding and expression of emotions
? Virtual characters, artificial personalities and human-compatibility
? Agent-based modeling of intelligent social phenomena
Cognitive Science:
? Perception, reasoning, decision making and action in BICA
? Combining natural and artificial approaches to cognition
? Comparison of different forms of learning and memory
? Theory-of-Mind, episodic and autobiographical memory in cognitive systems
? Introspection, metacognitive reasoning and self-awareness in BICA
? Models of learning and memory: robustness, flexibility, transferability
? Natural language and its role in intelligence, cognition and interaction
? Unifying frameworks and constraints for cognitive architectures
Artificial Intelligence:
? Creativity, goal reasoning and autonomy in artifacts
? Embodied vs. ambient intelligence
? Language capabilities and social competence
? Learning by reading, by observation, by reasoning and analogy
? Robust and scalable machine learning mechanisms
? Self-regulated learning, bootstrapped and meta-learning
? The place for BICA in the textbook of artificial intelligence
General:
? Mathematical basis for BICA and fundamental theoretical questions in BICA research
? Alternative substrates for implementation of BICA: smart materials, quantum and biocomputing
? Alternative approaches to the development of BICA such as: evolutionary, system-theoretic, educational.
? Fundamental practical and theoretical questions in BICA research and technology
? Cognitive Decathlon and Grand Challenges for BICA as components of the BICA Challenge
? Critical mass for a universal human-level learner and a roadmap to the BICA Challenge
? Metrics, tests, proximity measures and the roadmap to human-level / human-compatible AI
? Leveraging the cloud, world-wide-web, and social-media: possible role for BICA?
? Interdisciplinary research opportunities
? International trends in funding BICA related research
Format and Agenda
The format of the conference is a 2.5-day meeting including paper presentations, panel discussions, invited talks, and demonstration showcases. Symposia and other mini-events (special sessions, breakout groups, brainstorms, think-tanks, socials, contests, and more) as part of the conference will be added as needed (proposals are solicited). In addition, BICA 2014 will host a special track "Doctorial Consortium" for which a "best student paper" award will be presented. We will also host technology demonstrations, for which we solicit proposals, and a poster session. We solicit additionally proposals for panel topics. The working language is English. As a part of our rich social and cultural program included in the registration, we are planning a Welcome Reception and a boat trip into the Atlantic on Saturday night, with a banquet on the boat. Detailed program is not available yet. Please see our separate pages for Confirmed symposia planned as part of BICA 2014 (we are asking for additional proposals).
Venues
Conference Venue:
The conference will be held on the MIT campus in the Stata Building on Saturday and Sunday, November 8 and 9; however, on Friday, November 7, it will be held in the nearby Boston Marriott Cambridge hotel (address: Two Cambridge Center, 50 Broadway Cambridge Massachusetts 02142 USA; phone: 1-617-494-6600), which is also an official site of BICA 2014, in addition to the MIT campus.
Submission and Publication Venues:
Publication venues include: (1) the Elsevier journal BICA - papers may be distributed among several journal issues; and (2) a volume of Procedia Computer Science, indexed by Web of Science and Scopus. One EasyChair submission site will be used for all categories of submissions, including (1), (2) and also (3): stand-alone abstracts that will be included in the conference program brochure, without being published. All submissions will undergo one round of peer-reviews. The category may be changed based on reviews. All conference materials (including papers and abstracts) will be together made available locally for conference participants (included in the registration package) via USB and/or the Internet. Invited speakers are not required, but are encouraged to submit papers or abstracts. Other participants can have presentations accepted based on an abstract only, without a paper submission.
Submission Preparation: please see this separate page
None of the 3 submission categories require producing a camera-ready version or typesetting by the Author. However, Authors should consult requirements specified in the Elsevier BICA Guide for Authors (http://www.elsevier.com/journals/biologically-insp...) for the category Letter (preferred; 3,000 - 6,000 words) or Research Article (approximately 8,000 ? 12,000 words). In addition, Procedia papers will be limited to 6 journal pages; any extra pages will need to be covered by an Extra Page Fee of $50 USD per page. Alternatively, Authors are encouraged to submit longer Research Articles as journal papers, avoiding any Extra Page Fees. Position Papers or Reviews may be submitted as journal papers by invitation only; however, Position Papers can be submitted as Procedia papers without personal invitation (the same page limit applies). After the initial peer-review, accepted papers will be assigned to a specific publication venue by the Program Committee.
Core Organizing Committee
Paul Robertson (DOLL, Inc.): General Chair
Patrick H. Winston (CSAIL/MIT): Co-Chair
Howard Shrobe (CSAIL/MIT): Co-Chair
Alexei Samsonovich (GMU): PC Chair
Antonio Chella: OC Member
Christian Lebiere: OC Member
Kamilla R. Jóhannsdóttir: OC Member