Apologies for cross-posting =========================================================================== PhD Openings at the Cognitive Robotics and Interaction Lab Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department Italian Institute of Technology =========================================================================== In the spirit of the doctoral School on Bioengineering and Robotics the PhD Program for the curriculum “Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies” offers interdisciplinary training at the interface between technology and life-sciences. The objective of the PhD program is to form scientists and research technologists capable of working in multidisciplinary teams on projects where human factors play a crucial role in technological development and design.  Robotics and neuroscience researchers in RBCS share, as a fundamental scientific objective, the study of physical and social interaction in humans and machines (www.iit.it/rbcs ).  Among the different research themes proposed I would like to advertise these three topics: • VISUO-HAPTIC EXPLORATION STRATEGIES FOR OBJECT RECOGNITION • MAKE HUMANOIDS UNDERSTAND HUMAN ACTIONS • MULTISENSORY HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION The ideal candidates are students with a higher level university degree willing to invest extra time and effort in blending into a multidisciplinary team composed of neuroscientists, engineers, psychologists, physicists working together to investigate brain functions and realize intelligent machines, rehabilitation protocols and advanced prosthesis. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR (www.codefror.eu) , with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues, relocation, etc. Below you can find more details related to the position and the instructions on how to apply. Application deadline: *****10 June 2016, Noon,  Italian time***** Best regards, Alessandra Sciutti ----------------------------------------- Alessandra Sciutti (PhD) Researcher, Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences Dept. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy email: alessandra.sciutti@iit.it https://www.iit.it/people/alessandra-sciutti =========================================================================== Make humanoids understand human actions Tutors: Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Dr. Francesco Rea, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: Action understanding is a fundamental ability at the basis of human interaction. Neurophysiological evidence indicate that it is supported by a visuo-motor matching process: action observation activates in the observer a motor representation of the same action learned through execution, which yields to a rapid and automatic understanding of the action goal. Hence, visual action understanding requires a sensori-motor representation of the action, built by  performing it and learning its motor and sensory consequences. The general aim of this project will be to provide the humanoid robot iCub with a similar visuo-motor matching skill in order to endow it with a human-like ability to understand human actions. In particular the robot will have to learn the motor (efference copy) and sensory (visual, joint angles, forces) consequences of its own actions to build a complete action representation. The research should determine which are the visual information needed to allow the recall of this model when the robot observes the same action performed by someone else. The work might take advantage of a computational system already available on the robot designed to localize the portion of the scene containing biological motion and extract some of its visual features . The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements:  degree in robotics, bioengineering, computer science, computer engineering, or related disciplines, attitude for problem solving, c++ programming. A background on machine learning is an asset. References: •             Sciutti A., Ansuini C., Becchio C. & Sandini G. 2015, ‘Investigating the ability to read others’ intentions using humanoid robots’, Frontiers in Psychology – Cognitive Science, vol. 6,no. 1362 •             Noceti N., Sciutti A. & Sandini G. 2015, ‘Cognition helps vision: recognizing biological motion using invariant dynamic cues’, 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing. •             Rizzolatti G, Craighero L. 2004 The mirror-neuron system. Annu Rev Neurosci 27:169–192 Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: alessandra.sciutti@iit.it, francesco.rea@iit.it , giulio.sandini@iit.it =========================================================================== Multisensory human-robot interaction        Tutors: Dr. Francesco Rea,  Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: Humans interact with each other by exploiting a variety of communicative cues across many different sensory channels. Communication signals range from speech to sounds in the auditory domain, from gestures to facial expressions in the visual domain and to different types of physical contacts in the haptic domain. Moreover, these signals can be explicitly communicative, as pointing or waving, or implicit and unconscious, as gaze direction or body movements speed. The activity we propose is to endow the humanoid robot iCub with a library of sensory and motor skills supporting all these communication possibilities. The robot will have first to detect the presence of a potential human partner nearby and then establish a communication with him by making use of  these multisensory cues. The research will leverage on the current social capabilities of the robot iCub, as gaze tracking,  biological motion detection, biologically plausible motion generation, etc.  The selected candidate will have to integrate the existing skills and develop the missing abilities, in order to enable iCub to interact naturally with non-expert users across multiple sensory domains. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements: Degree in robotics, bioengineering, computer science, computer engineering, or related disciplines, attitude for problem solving, c++ programming, as also willingness to make experiments with human participants. Strong motivation to work and adapt to a multidisciplinary environment. References:. •             Palinko O., Sciutti A., Rea F. & Sandini G., 2015, ‘Eye Gaze Tracking for a Humanoid Robot’ in IEEE/RAS International Conference of Humanoids Robotics, Seoul, Korea, November 3-5 2015. •             Mosadeghzad M., Rea F., Tata M., Brayda L. & Sandini G. 2015, ‘Saliency Based Sensor Fusion of Broadband Sound Localizer for Humanoids’, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Information Integration (MFI 2015), San Diego, CA, USA, September 14-16, 2015; •             Sciutti A., Patanè L., Nori F. & Sandini G., 2014, ‘Understanding object weight from human and humanoid lifting actions’, IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 80-92 doi: 10.1109/TAMD.2014.2312399 Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: francesco.rea@iit.it , alessandra.sciutti@iit.it, giulio.sandini@iit.it =========================================================================== Visuo-haptic exploration strategies for object recognition Tutors: Dr. Alessandra Sciutti, Dr. Francesco Rea, Prof. Giulio Sandini Department: RBCS (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) http://www.iit.it/rbcs =========================================================================== Description: In everyday situations human adults are capable of transferring information about objects from one sensory modality to the other. Objects explored visually can, at a later time, be analyzed, and recognized, by exploring them with our hands and, vice versa, we can visually recognize objects that have been previously explored haptically. This cross-modal transfer can be explained only through the use of a representation of objects merging visual and haptic information and perhaps by hypothesizing a shared exploratory strategy used when we explore objects visually or haptically. The main scientific objective of the project is to test this hypothesis by investigating how the transfer of information form one sensory modality to the other develops in humans and if different sensory channels share the same exploration strategy. A model of this ability could be implemented on the humanoid robot iCub to build and exploit a multisensory representation of manipulable objects, augmenting its ability to learn how to interact with the environment and with others.  The successful candidate will conduct experimental investigation of  human visuo-haptic explorative strategies by means of multiple techniques, as eye-tracking, motion capture and force measurements with ad hoc designed devices. The collected data will be used to model the exploration strategies both during healthy development and in presence of sensory deficits. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to spend part of his/her PhD at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Marie Curie IRSES project CODEFROR, with the purpose of integrating his/her knowledge with the different expertise available at these institutes. Requirements: The candidate for this position must have either a degree in Computer Science Engineering, Bioengineering or equivalent, with high interests in human sciences, or alternatively a degree in Psychology, with proven background in programming toolboxes (Matlab, R). References:. •             Gori M., Sciutti A., Burr D. & Sandini G. 2011, ‘Direct and indirect haptic calibration of visual size judgments’, PLoS ONE, vol. 6,no. 10, e25599. [ •             Sann, C. and Streri, A. (2007), Perception of object shape and texture in human newborns: evidence from cross-modal transfer tasks. Developmental Science, 10: 399–410. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00593.x •             Gori, M., Del Viva, M., Sandini, G., & Burr, D. C. (2008). Young children do not integrate visual and haptic form information. Current Biology, 18(9), 694-698. Contacts: Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the perspective tutors before they submit their application: alessandra.sciutti@iit.it, francesco.rea@iit.it , giulio.sandini@iit.it =========================================================================== How to apply =========================================================================== Please note that the positions are available through the PhD course of Bioengineering and Robotics, curriculum on Cognitive Robotics, Interaction and Rehabilitation Technologies, offered jointly by IIT and the University of Genoa. The official calls are available here: https://www.iit.it/phd-school under the section “Research themes for the call for application to PhD Courses established in agreement with the Università degli Studi di Genova, XXXII cycle”. Please have a look at the "tips and tricks" section which contains detailed instructions on how to apply and a list of documents you have to present. The link to the on-line application page is: http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ In case of problems or questions related to the application procedure, please contact: anastasia.bruzzone@iit.it   =========================================================================== Application deadline: *****10 June 2016, Noon,  Italian time****** ===========================================================================