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*     ICDL-Epirob 2019 Workshop      *

*             Mapping the self:                 *

*     infants, robots, and modeling      *

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Key Facts

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ICDL-Epirob 2019 Workshop, Monday, August 19, 2019

Location: Oslo, Norway at Ingeniørenes hus møtesenter (Engineer’s House Conference Centre)

Submission deadline: June 10, 2019

Notification:  June 30, 2019

Workshop URL: https://sites.google.com/site/matejhof/events/mapping-the-self

Main conference URL: https://icdl-epirob2019.org/

Submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=irm19

Organizers

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• Daniela Corbetta (Univ of Tennessee, USA)

• Matej Hoffmann (Prague, Czech Republic)  

• Jeffrey Lockman (New Orleans, USA)

• Verena Hafner (Berlin, Germany)   

Description

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Our bodies constitute the interface between our mind and the surrounding world. To interact effectively with the world, babies and robots need to discover the different parts of their bodies, and their physical and mechanical properties. They need to know where their limbs are in space, how far they can extend, how they work, and what range of actions they can achieve with them. Such body representations are essential for developing a sense of the self and for defining the limits of the peripersonal space. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers in the fields of developmental psychology, developmental robotics, embodied cognition, body mapping, and computational modeling to create a productive, collaborative, and multidisciplinary forum from which different facets of these fundamental processes linked to body mapping and mapping the self will be explored. The workshop will be organized around three general themes with specific speakers and experts in each area:

1. Body mapping: This theme will group developmental and learning studies in infants, adults, and robots on self-touch, self-exploration of the body, self-localization, and haptic perception to understand how the mapping of the self forms.

2. Defining the peripersonal space: This theme will examine the range and conditions through which our peripersonal space develops, is being perceived, and being modulated through interactions with objects, people, and events in our daily surroundings. This theme will contrast infant, children, and adult studies as well as computational models.

3. Sense of self and body ownership: This third theme will explore how our brain builds a map and sense of ownership of objects as extensions of our own body. Studies and models on tool use learning, prostheses mastery, including studies on the rubber hand illusion will provide a framework to understand how perception and action of inanimate objects can be experienced as functional extensions of our body and self.

Confirmed Invited Speakers

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Daniela Corbetta (Univ. Tennessee, USA)  

Jeffrey J. Lockman (Tulane Univ., USA)

Sergiu Popescu (Paris Descartes University, France)

Matej Hoffmann (Czech Tech. Univ, Czech Rep)  

Gianluca Baldassarre / Vieri Santucci (CNR, Italy)

Jean-Paul Noel (NYU, USA)    

Rory Bufacchi (Univ. College London, UK)

Alban Laflaquiere (AI Lab, Softbank Robotics, France)

Benjamin Kuipers (Univ. of Michigan, USA)

Tamar Makin (Univ. College London, UK)

Dorothy Cowie (Durham, UK)

Verena Hafner (Humboldt-Univ., Germany)

Target audience

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Cognitive psychologists, developmental psychologists, developmental roboticists, embodied cognition, cognitive neuroscience, researchers on the self, computational modeling, machine learning

Format of contributions

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We invite participants to submit a 500-word abstract for a single-blind review by the workshop organizers. Selected abstracts will be presented as Posters -- few selected possibly as short talks. The contributions  should present findings that are related to any of the three themes of the workshop (body mapping, peripersonal space, and sense of self). This is an especially great opportunity for young researchers who wish to participate in this workshop, share their findings, and interact with experts in this multidisciplinary and emerging research field. The 500-word submissions should be in Word or LaTeX with a title no longer than 120 characters. Please use the following formatting linked here. Authors’ names and affiliations should be on the abstract.

Submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=irm19

On behalf of the organizers,

Matej Hoffmann