at the 5th International Conference
of the Society for Adaptive Behavior (SAB'98)
University of Zurich, Switzerland
August 21, 1998
http://www.ofai.at/~paolo.petta/conf/sab98/sab98ws.html
In the works (watch this space!):
The fee for attending this workshop only is CHF~180.00, or CHF~60.00 for students. This fee does not cover the proceedings of the SAB'98 main conference, which can be bought on site at the price of CHF~90.00. Please state clearly whether you are registering just for the workshop or for the full conference on your registration form (available online via the SAB'98 Home Page).
The rate of exchange is approximately 1.4~CHF = 1~USD.
In the early 80s, Masanao Toda presented his ideas on emotional Fungus Eaters in his book "Man, Robot, and Society". Fungus Eaters have a set of urges, which closely resemble what is commonly referred to as emotion. His urge theory gave a reinterpretation of emotions as survival programs, and he illustrated this idea by means of the Fungus Eaters scenario. Recent findings in the Neurosciences about the roles of emotions in biological systems show agreement with Toda's insight. Furthermore, neurobiologists have advanced some hypotheses, which computer simulations seem to corroborate, where emotional systems are modeled as adaptive systems. As another case in point, research in Animat/Artificial Life and sociology has highlighted the relevance of action and interaction as giving rise to and providing the grounding for various fundamental phenomena. According to these and many other findings, emotion appears to be involved in many aspects of our activity in the world.
The aim of this workshop is to provide an interdisciplinary forum to investigate and discuss state-of-the-art research in biologically plausible models of emotion. The main focus is on emotions grounded in adaptive systems, and on the impacts of emotion on the agents activity, both at the individual and social levels.
Contributions related (but not limited) to the following topics are welcomed:
Interaction among participants will be highly encouraged, both before and during the workshop. For this reason, the number of participants will be limited to about 20-25 people.
Before the workshop, participants will have access to electronic versions of all contributions, assembled at the workshop Web page. Participants will be asked to work in groups organized around specific topics (3 or 4 groups are planned). Each group shall have to prepare and submit a proposal for a discussion session during the workshop. The proposal is to include a list of discussion questions and topics, and a synopsis of how these issues are approached by the single participants. Discussions and session proposals will be made available at the workshop website.
The workshop will consist of 3 or 4 discussion sessions. The length of the sessions will vary depending on the accepted workshop length: one hour each for a half-day workshop, and between one hour and a half and two hours for a one-day workshop. Each session will start by a presentation of the set of questions and synopsis previously prepared by the group, and of the different approaches proposed by the participants to tackle these problems. The rest of the session (at least half of the time) will be devoted to discussion of the issues presented. The last session of the workshop will consist of a summary of the main issues and a general, open discussion.
Note: The workshop will be held during the SAB'98 conference. No additional registration fee is required for the workshop.
Participants should submit a position paper (extended abstract) related to work in progress, recently completed efforts, positions, testbeds, discussion topics or potential panels. Other interested participants should send a one- or two-page description of their work and interest in this area (including a list of relevant publications), or specific questions they think should be addressed.
Contributions should aim at raising questions, identifying salient issues, and stimulating discussion, rather than reporting about "polished" completed work.
All contributions must include title, author(s) name(s), affiliation, e-mail and mailing addresses, and phone and fax numbers.
Please submit a compressed (gzip, zip, ...) PostScript version of your paper by e-mail to:
Chisato Numaoka, Dr.
E-mail: chisato@csl.sony.fr
Sony Computer Science Laboratory
6, rue Amyot
75005 Paris, France
Michel Aubé (Univ. Sherbrooke, CDN) Christian Balkenius (Lund University, SWE) Bruce Blumberg (MIT Media Lab, USA) Luís Botelho (ISCTE, POR) Rodney A. Brooks (MIT AI Lab, USA) Dolores Cañamero (LSI-UPC & IIIA-CSIC, ESP) Cristiano Castelfranchi (IP-CNR, Rome, ITA) Helder Coelho (Dept. Informatica, Univ. de Lisboa, POR) Jean-Marc Fellous (Salk Institute, USA) Mark Humphrys (Univ. of Edinburgh, GBR) Hiroaki Kitano (SONY Tokio, JPN) Jean-Arcady Meyer (ENS, FRA) David Moffat (Univ. of Wales, GBR) Chisato Numaoka (SONY CSL, FRA) Paolo Petta (ÖFAI, AUT) Rolf Pfeifer (AI Lab, Univ. Zurich, CHE) Erich Prem (ÖFAI, AUT) Thomas Wehrle (FAPSE, Univ. of Geneva, CHE)