[Apologies for multiple posts; please distribute to interested colleagues and relevant mailing lists.] Dear all, We are pleased to announce that the submission deadline for the BEACON 2026 Workshop — Beyond the Concrete: Grounding Abstract Concepts in Multimodal Interaction, co-located with ACM ICMI 2026, has been extended to July 17, 2026. BEACON 2026 brings together researchers working on multimodal representation learning, embodied and developmental models, robotics, cognitive science, and hybrid cognitive architectures. The workshop aims to consolidate computational approaches, datasets, and evaluation methodologies for abstract concept grounding while identifying shared assumptions and open research challenges. A keynote talk will be given by Professor Gabriella Vigliocco, Professor of the Psychology of Language at University College London. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Grounding abstract concepts in multimodal interaction Hierarchical and developmental models of abstraction Cross-modal abstraction and alignment Embodied and interactive concept learning Multimodal action and goal representations Affective and contextual abstraction Embodied and interactive learning of abstract language Hybrid cognitive architectures for abstract grounding Evaluation methodologies for abstract concept grounding Multimodal datasets and benchmarks for abstract concepts Applications of abstract grounding in HCI and HRI Submission Formats Short papers: 4 pages Full papers: 8 pages All accepted and presented papers will be included in the proceedings of the ACM ICMI 2026 workshops. Submission Instructions Submit through the ICMI 2026 PCS portal: https://new.precisionconference.com/icmi26/ After signing in, select: SIGCHI → ICMI 2026 → ICMI 2026 Workshop: Beyond a Concrete: Grounding Abstract Concepts in Multimodal Interaction Then click Go. Updated Important Dates Submission deadline: July 17, 2026 Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2026 Camera-ready submission: August 7, 2026 Workshop: October 9, 2026 Workshop website: https://beacon2026.github.io/ We welcome contributions from the multimodal interaction, artificial intelligence, robotics, human–computer interaction, human–robot interaction, and cognitive science communities. For questions, please contact Rahul Singh Maharjan at rahul.simha.is@gmail.com Best regards, Rahul Singh Maharjan on behalf of the BEACON 2026 Organizers