Tom, that's fantastic! I'm particularly excited to see the connectionist and dynamic systems people together. :) It's too bad ICIS and JPS were so close together in time -- I would have loved to see the symposia.<br>
<br>Angelo is encouraging each of the AMD task forces to think about organizing a special issue of TAMD. When you have some time, let's brainstorm a bit and see if we can propose a topic/theme that will help continue the momentum. An idea suggested by Giorgio Metta that would work well is to solicit papers from pairs of robotics/behavioral researchers who have collaborated, to not only provide developmental people with examples of their own paradigms, but also demonstrate what robotics/modeling offers as a tool kit. <br>
<br>Cheers,<br><br>Matt<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Thomas Shultz, Dr. <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:thomas.shultz@mcgill.ca" target="_blank">thomas.shultz@mcgill.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-CA">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Dear Colleagues:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Thanks to Matt Schlesinger for his summary of the developmental robotics workshop (organized with Jochen
Triesch) that took place before the International Conference on Infant Studies in Minneapolis: a nice example of improving collaboration between computational and behavioral researchers interested in development.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">In a similar vein, I wanted to mention that there were two relevant invited symposia at the 42nd Annual
Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, held in Toronto 31 May – 2 June. These symposia were well attended and enthusiastically received, with considerable audience engagement and interaction. It is clear that researchers in cognitive development are not only
interested in following relevant computational work but also in some cases getting involved with it, either as practioners or empirical collaborators.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Also, Linda Smith gave a relevant and well-attended invited address at this meeting. These three JPS events
are summarized below.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Best wishes,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Tom<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1f497d" lang="EN-US">-----------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Thomas Shultz, Professor, Department of Psychology<br>
McGill University, 1205 Penfield Ave., Montreal, Quebec, <br>
Canada H3A 1B1.<br>
Associate Member, School of Computer Science<br>
E-mail: thomas.shultz at <a href="http://mcgill.ca" target="_blank">mcgill.ca</a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#1f497d" lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1f497d" lang="EN-US">Updated 25 March 2011:
<a href="http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/perpg/fac/shultz/personal/default.htm" target="_blank">http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/perpg/fac/shultz/personal/default.htm</a><br>
Phone: <a href="tel:514%20398-6139" value="+15143986139" target="_blank">514 398-6139</a><br>
Fax: <a href="tel:514%20398-4896" value="+15143984896" target="_blank">514 398-4896</a><br>
-----------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d" lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Invited Symposium 5<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Saturday 2 June, 3:00-4:30, Essex<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">John Spencer <<a href="mailto:john-spencer@uiowa.edu" target="_blank">john-spencer@uiowa.edu</a>><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Invited Symposium 5: From complex insights to complex systems: Rethinking
<i>how</i> development happens<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Organizer: John P Spencer (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times","serif"" lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times","serif"" lang="EN-US">This symposium brings together several of the top researchers who use formal, complex systems approaches to understand how cognition changes over development.
The goal is to rethink Piaget’s insights in the context of modern, formal theories. The central question is whether these modern tools give us new leverage to understand the mechanisms that underlie changes in thinking over time. The first talk will re-visit
associative systems which have often been discounted as too simple to capture developmental change. The message is that association is a powerful mechanism for creating change, even in relatively abstract cognitive tasks. The second talk will examine the emergence
of new cognitive abilities in early development, focusing on the critical question of how working memory capacity increases over time. The final talk will provide an overview of constructive artificial neural networks that have shed new light on a host of
changes in cognitive development. Together, the talks will highlight cutting-edge work using neural process models to understand how development happens, integrating a formal, complex systems perspective with a rigorous approach to studying behavioral development.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:2.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Throwing out Lucienne and Laurent with the bathwater: How the development of abstraction via perception and action can emerge from associative systems</span></b><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">
<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Bob McMurray (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Keith Apfelbaum (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Larissa Samuelson (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Capacity in context: Dynamic processes of behavior, memory, and development<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"MS Gothic"" lang="EN-US">
</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Vanessa Simmering (University of Wisconsin—Madison)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Constructive artificial neural-network models for cognitive development</span></b><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<div style="border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;margin-left:18.0pt;margin-right:0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;border:none;padding:0cm">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Thomas Shultz (McGill University)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Invited Symposium 4<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Saturday 2 June, 9:00-10:30, Essex<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Thomas Shultz <<a href="mailto:thomas.shultz@mcgill.ca" target="_blank">thomas.shultz@mcgill.ca</a>></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Invited Symposium 4: Computational approaches to development<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Organizer: Thomas Shultz (McGill University)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Computational modeling implements developmental theory in a precise manner, allowing generation, explanation, integration, and prediction of phenomena. The
three most prominent modeling approaches to psychological development (neural networks, dynamic systems, and Bayesian) are each well represented in this symposium.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">The classical approach to analogy emphasizes structured representations and structure mapping. Instead, Denis Mareschal sees analogy as deriving from relational
priming. He implements this in a neural network in which relations are represented as transformations between states. Network performance covers several developmental phenomena, illustrating how a complex cognitive skill emerges from priming.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Dynamic systems consist of a set of quantitative variables that change continually, concurrently, and interdependently over time, corresponding to differential
equations. John Spencer and Sammy Perone probe the development of working and long-term memory in the first year. Their simulations show that key aspects of developmental change can be captured by Hebbian learning in a system that autonomously explores the
visual world. This suggests that new cognitive abilities emerge in the first year as infants construct their own development via exploratory activity.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Research on epistemic trust typically interprets children's success as evidence that they track others' knowledge. Patrick Shafto presents evidence that
4-year-olds' behavior is better explained by reasoning about both knowledge and intent, and developmental differences between 3 and 4 are consistent with changing abilities to reason about intent, not knowledge.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">A connectionist model of analogical completion<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Denis Mareschal (Birkbeck, University of London)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Constructing development in an autonomous dynamical system: Insights from dynamic field theory<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">John P Spencer (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Sammy Perone (University of Iowa)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Epistemic trust: Modeling children's reasoning about others' knowledge and intent<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:18.0pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">Patrick Shafto (University of Louisville)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm">
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:3.0pt;margin-left:132.0pt;border:none;padding:0cm">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#221e1f">3:00-4:15 PL04 Plenary Session 4............................................................................................................Osgoode East<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:84.0pt">
<b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Futura Medium","sans-serif";color:#221e1f">The sensory-motor dynamics of early word learning</span></i></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Futura Medium","sans-serif";color:#221e1f"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:96.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221e1f">Linda Smith (Indiana University)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221e1f">The visual world is cluttered with many targets and many distractions. Yet very young children readily learn object names from the co-occurrences of hearing spoken names with such cluttered
scenes. Mapping an as-yet unlearned name to the right referent requires selecting and stabilizing attention on attention on the intended referent in the scene. This talk will present new evidence on how young learners solve these problems through an embodied
attentional system that involves hands, heads, and eyes. More specifically, the talk will present evidence from dynamically dense and multimodal measures that show: (1) how toddlers through their own hand, head and eye movements select and stabilize visual
attention on a selected target; (2) how toddlers’ sensorimotor activities significantly reduce visual clutter and competition in the visual field, and in so doing support word learning; and (3) how parents and toddler form a complex system of dynamically coupled
hand, head, and eye movements so as to achieve tightly coordinated visual attention.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br>