Advanced Robotics

Special Section on Cognitive Development and Symbol Emergence

[Section Editor]

Alessandra Sciutti (Italian Institute of Technology ), Akira Taniguchi (Ritsumeikan University ), Angelo Cangelosi (University of Manchester, Britta Wrede, Bielefeld University), Chen Yu (University of Texas at Austin), Chie Hieida (Nara Institute of Science and Technology), Emre Ugur (Boğaziçi University ), Erhan Oztop (Özyeğin University / The University of Osaka), Friederike Eyssel (Bielefeld University), Hiroyuki Izuka(Hokkaido University), Jochen Triesch (Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt), Jun Tani (OIST), Kento Kawaharazuka (The University of Tokyo), Lorenzo Jamone (Queen Mary University of London), Masahiro Suzuki (The University of Tokyo ), Pablo Lanillos (Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmege), Pierre-yves Oudeyer (French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA)), Reiji Suzuki (Nagoya University), Shingo Murata (Keio University ), Tadahiro Taniguchi (Kyoto University), Takato Horii (The University of Osaka*), Tatsuya Matsushima (The University of Tokyo), Tetsuya Ogata (Waseda University), and Tomoaki Nakamura (University of Electro-Communications)

[Advisor]

Minoru Asada (Osaka University / International Professional University of Technology in Osaka) and Giulio Sandini (Italian Institute of Technology)

Scope

Humans develop their cognitive systems through physical and social interactions with their environment. They also organize symbol systems, including language, that enable communication and cooperation with others. These two processes are referred to as cognitive development and symbol emergence, respectively. Modeling and understanding these phenomena using a constructive/synthetic approach is important not only for developing lifelong learning autonomous robots, i.e., embodied artificial general intelligence, but also for understanding human cognitive systems. Despite the remarkable progress in AI and robotics, there is still considerable room for contributions in this area.

This section aims to elucidate the interrelated processes of cognitive development and symbol emergence in robotics. By providing a platform for interdisciplinary research exchange, we aim to advance the field of cognitive robotics and deepen our understanding of human cognition and symbolic representation.

Cognitive development involves the process of adaptation of robots' cognitive abilities over time, including learning from interactions. Symbol emergence focuses on the creation of symbols and symbolic systems through robots' interactions with their environment, addressing the need for meaningful, grounded symbols for communication and reasoning.

We invite contributions from a variety of disciplines, including robotics, AI, cognitive science, developmental psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, we aim to push the boundaries of cognitive development and symbol emergence to advance the creation of intelligent, adaptive, and human-like robotic systems.

Keywords

• Cognitive Development,
•  Cognitive Robotics,
•  Developmental Robotics,
•  Cognitive and Developmental Systems,
•  Symbol Emergence,
•  Symbol Grounding,
•  Symbolic Representation,
•  Symbolic Systems,
•  Language Acquisition,
•  Embodied Cognition,
•  Sensorimotor/Multimodal Learning,
•  Human-like Cognitive Systems,
•  Social Interaction,
•  Human-Robot Interaction,
•  Symbolic Interaction,
•  Lifelong/Open-ended Learning,
•  Intrinsic Motivation,
•  Machine Learning,
•  Deep Learning,
•  Representation Learning,
•  Predictive Coding,
•  Free-Energy Principle,
•  Active Inference and Exploration,
•  World Models,
•  Probabilistic Generative Models,
•  Neuro/Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems

Website

For more information about the special section, visit the following URL.

https://ss-ar.emergent-symbol.systems/