Conference Announcement and Call For Papers FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS Fourth International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB96) Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, September 9-13, 1996 The objective of the conference is to bring together researchers in ethology, psychology, ecology, artificial intelligence, artificial life, robotics, and related fields so as to further our understanding of the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow natural and artificial animals to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. The conference will focus particularly on well-defined models, computer simulations, and robotics demonstrations, in order to help characterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real animals or synthetic agents. The plenary speakers are James Albus, Daniel Dennett, Randall Gallistel, Scott Kelso, and David Touretzky. Contributions treating any of the following topics from the perspective of adaptive behavior will receive special emphasis: Action selection Learning and development Perception and motor control Evolutionary computation Neural correlates of behavior Coevolutionary models Emergent structures and behaviors Parallel and distributed models Motivation and emotion Collective and social behavior Internal world models Autonomous robots Characterization of environments Applied adaptive behavior Authors should make every effort to suggest implications of their work for both natural and artificial animals. Papers which do not deal explicitly with adaptive behavior will be rejected. Submission Instructions Authors are requested to send six copies (hard copy only) of a full paper to the Program Chair (Pattie Maes) arriving no later than Feb 9th, 1996. Late submissions will not be considered. Papers should not exceed 10 pages (excluding the title page), with 1 inch margins all around, and no smaller than 10 pt (12 pitch) type (Times Roman preferred). Each paper must include a title page containing the following: (1) Full names, postal addresses, phone numbers, email addresses (if available), and fax numbers for each author, (2) A 100-200 word abstract, (3) The topic area(s) in which the paper could be reviewed (see list above). Camera ready versions of accepted papers, in two-column format, will be required by May 10th. The Web site listed below contains the file "camera-ready.txt" which specifies the official format for accepted papers. Some template and style files are also available there, but are not guaranteed to produce the correct format. Computer, video, and robotic demonstrations are also invited for submission. Submit a 2-page proposal plus a title page as above to the program chair. Indicate equipment requirements and relevance to the themes of the conference. Conference Chairs Pattie Maes, Program MIT Media Lab 20 Ames Street Rm 305 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA email: pattie@media.mit.edu Maja Mataric, Local Arrangements Volen Center for Complex Systems Computer Science Department Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02254 USA email: maja@cs.brandeis.edu Jean-Arcady Meyer, Publicity Groupe de Bioinformatique URA686.Ecole Normale Superieure 46 rue d'Ulm 75230 Paris Cedex 05 France email: meyer@wotan.ens.fr Jordan Pollack, Local Arrangements/Financial Volen Center for Complex Systems Computer Science Department Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02254 USA email: pollack@cs.brandeis.edu Herbert Roitblat, Financial Department of Psychology University of Hawaii 2430 Campus Road Honolulu, HI 96822 USA email: roitblat@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Stewart Wilson, Proceedings The Rowland Institute for Science 100 Edwin H. Land Blvd. Cambridge, MA 02142 USA email: wilson@smith.rowland.org Program Committee: Peter Angeline, Michael Arbib, Ronald Arkin, Randall Beer, Bruce Blumberg, Lashon Booker, Dave Cliff, Thomas Collett, Holk Cruse, Jacques Ferber, Dario Floreano, Simon Giszter, John Hallam, Inman Harvey, Ian Horswill, Phil Husbands, Leslie Pack Kaelbing, Harry Klopf, Michael Littman, David McFarland, Jose Del Millan, Geoffrey Miller, Rolf Pfeifer, Alan Schultz, Jean-Jacques Slotine, Tim Smithers, Luc Steels, Lynn Andrea Stein, Frederick Toates, Peter Todd, Saburo Tsuji, David Waltz Official Language: English Publisher: MIT Press/Bradford Books Important Dates =============== FEB 9, 1996: Submissions must be received APR 12: Notification of acceptance or rejection (via email) MAY 10: Camera ready revised versions due JUN 10: Early registration deadline AUG 8: Hotel reservations and regular registration deadline SEP 9-13: Conference dates General queries to: sab96@cs.brandeis.edu WWW Page: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/conferences/sab96/ ==============================================================================