* WHAT

The SMILES workshop is about Sensorimotor Interaction, Language and Embodiment of Symbols (SMILES). It is a satellite event from the ICDL 2020 (International Conference on Developmental Learning).

* WHEN
Tuesday 31st of August 2021. Planned schedule (it might change): 9am - 8.30pm CEST (UTC+2).

* WHERE
Online event on Zoom. (Link sent to registered people the day before, see LINKS section)

* WHO
8 Invited speakers from multiple fields: neurolinguistics, speech communication, language evolution, developmental science, social robotics, computational neuroscience, language acquisition.
- Morten Christiansen, Cornell University, NY, USA & Aarhus University, Denmark
- Kaya de Barbaro, University of CaliforniaSan Diego, USA
- Cynthia Matuszek, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
- Yair Lakretz, NeuroSpin Center, Gif sur Yvette, France
- Harm Brouwer, Saarland University, Germany
- Jean-Luc Schwartz, Gipsa lab, Grenoble-Alpes University, France
- Daniel Dor, Tel Aviv University, Israel
- Lauren Emberson, University of British Columbia, Canada

* LINKS
- ** Website **: https://sites.google.com/view/smiles-workshop/home
- ** Registration is free but mandatory **: https://forms.gle/tyvMdbb8UJFyXZky8
- Contact: smiles.conf@gmail.com
- ICDL conference website: https://icdl-2021.org/

* WHAT+
(Short Description)
On the one hand, models of sensorimotor interaction are embodied in the environment and in the interaction with other agents. On the other hand, recent Deep Learning development of Natural Language Processing (NLP) models allow to capture increasing language complexity (e.g. compositional representations, word embedding, long term dependencies). However, those NLP models are disembodied in the sense that they are learned from static datasets of text or speech. How can we bridge the gap from low-level sensorimotor interaction to high-level compositional symbolic communication? The SMILES workshop will address this issue through an interdisciplinary approach involving researchers from (but not limited to):
- Sensori-motor learning,
- Emergent communication in multi-agent systems,
- Chunking of perceptuo-motor gestures (gestures in a general sense: motor, vocal, ...),
- Sensori-motor learning,
- Symbol grounding and symbol emergence,
- Compositional representations for communication and action sequence,
- Hierarchical representations of temporal information,
- Language processing and acquisition in brains and machines,
- Models of animal communication,
- Language evolution,
- Understanding composition and temporal processing in neural network models, and
- Enaction, active perception, perception-action loop.


SMILES workshop organisers
- Xavier Hinaut, Inria, Bordeaux, France
- Clément Moulin-Frier, Inria and Ensta ParisTech, Bordeaux, France
- Silvia Pagliarini, Inria, Bordeaux, France
- Michael Spranger, Sony AI and Sony CSL, Tokyo, Japan
- Tadahiro Taniguchi, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan
- Anne S. Warlaumont, University of California, Los Angeles, America
- Junpei Zhong, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Xavier Hinaut
Inria Researcher (CR)
Mnemosyne team, Inria
LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux
Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives
www.xavierhinaut.com