1. Autonomous Mental Development Technical Committee (AMDTC)
June 2014
Autonomous Mental Development Technical Committee (AMDTC)
Chair: Matthew Schlesinger
Vice-Chairs: Yukie Nagai
Erol Sahin 1

2. AMDTC Members 2013 November 2014 June 78 Members 47 Members
North America: 22
North America: 14
Latin America: 1
Latin America: 0
Europe: 37
Europe: 27
Africa: 0
Asia: 16
Asia: 6
Oceania: 2
Oceania: 0
Male: 63, Female: 15
Male: 37, Female: 10
Members from Industry: 6
Members from Industry: 3
New Members: 10 (-27)
New Members: 0 (-30) 2

3. AMDTC Main Conference Statistics3
AMDTC Main Conference Statistics
ICDL: IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (with EpiRob since 2011)
Year
Location
Attendance
Accepted
/Submitted
Oral
Poster
SS1
Work-shops
Tutorials
Comp2 06
Bloomington
93/110 (84%) 41 51 7 3 6 07
London
59/105 (56%) 31 28 08
Monterey
113
59/120 (49%) 09
Shanghai
55/71 (77%) 1 2 10
Ann Arbor
117
54/81 (67%) 44 11
Frankfurt
144
100/119 (84%) 25 75 5 12
San Diego
112
61/91 (65%) 22
39+51 13
Osaka
123
54/77 (70%) 21 33 14
Genoa 15
Providence 16
Paris
Notes on 2012 acceptance rate:
65% = 61 out of 91 full paper submissions (22 talks, 39 posters)
Other 51 accepted as 2-page abstracts (19 submitted as 2-page only)
Plans for 2015 and 2016: A formal proposal for ICDL-EpiRob 2015 was submitted to the CIS in June 2014, to be hosted at Providence, Rhode Island. For 2016, Paris has been nominated, and the onsite organizing committee is being formed. 3

4. ICDL-Epirob October 13th-16th Genoa, ITALY 1 day workshop/tutorials 2½ days main conference (Mon-Thu)

5. ICDL-EpiRob 2014 General Chairs: Giorgio Metta (IIT, Genoa)
Mark Lee (Univ. of Aberystwyth)
Ian Fasel (Univ. of Arizona)
Bridge Chairs:
Giulio Sandini (IIT, Genoa)
Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi (Univ. Kyoto)
Program Chairs:
Lorenzo Natale (IIT, Genoa)
Hideki Kozima, not confirmed
Publications Chairs:
Francesco Nori (IIT, Genoa)
Erol Sahin (METU, Ankara)
Publicity Chairs:
Katrin Lohan (Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh)
Gordon Cheng (TUM, Munich)
Local chairs:
Alessandra Sciutti (IIT, Genoa)
Vadim Tikhanoff (IIT, Genoa)
Finance chairs:
Andrea Derito (IIT, Genoa)

6. ICDL-EpiRob 2014
The Doge's Palace (Italian: Palazzo Ducale) is a historical building in Genoa. Once the home of the Doges of Genoa, it is now a museum and a center for cultural events and arts exhibitions. It is situated in the heart of the city
Minor -> 160 or Maggior-> 500 pax
Munizioniere -> 100 pax
Lateral 25 to 40 pax

7. ICDL-Epirob August 13th-16th Brown University Providence, RI, USA 1 day workshops/tutorials 2½ days main conference (Thu-Sun)

8. ICDL-EpiRob 2015 General Chairs:
Matthew Schlesinger (Southern Illinois University)
Dima Amso (Brown University)
Bridge Chairs:
Jeffrey Krichmar (U.C. Irvine)
Bertram Malle (Brown University)
Program Chairs:
Clemént Moulin-Frier (INRIA)
Lisa Meeden (Swarthmore) not confirmed
Publications Chairs:
Anne Warlaumont (U.C. Merced)
Publicity Chairs:
Lola Canamero (University of Hertfordshire)
Matthias Rolf (Bielefeld University) not confirmed
Local chairs:
Thomas Serre (Brown University)
David Sobel (Brown University)
Finance chair:
TBA

9. ICDL-EpiRob 2015 March 9th, 2015, paper submission deadline
May 15th, 2015, author notification
July 1st, 2015, final version (camera ready) due
August 13th-16th, 2015, conference

10. ICDL-EpiRob 2015
Providence (RI) is home to several museums, including the RISD Museum, part of the famed Rhode Island School of Design; the John Brown House Museum, a landmark from the 18th century; and the Governor Henry Lippitt House Museum, an American National Historic Landmark. Theaters, galleries, outdoor adventures and more make Providence a place to get up and go. Providence's signature event is WaterFire, an award-winning fire sculpture installation on the three rivers in downtown Providence.
Minor -> 160 or Maggior-> 500 pax
Munizioniere -> 100 pax
Lateral 25 to 40 pax

11. ICDL-EpiRob 2016
Organizers in Paris have accepted the nomination and are preparing the proposal 11 11

12. Highlights/Plans for 2014 WCCI-IJCNN 2014 ICDL-EpiRob 2014 (Genoa)
AMDTC Special Session on “Cognition and Development”
ICDL-EpiRob 2014 (Genoa)
New Book
Cangelosi A. & Schlesinger M. (2014). Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots. Cambridge MA: MIT Press 12 12

13. TC Chair’s Plan in 2014 1. Reduced size of TFs:
- from 77 (2013) to 47 (2014) members
2. Individual TF webpages designed/launched
2. Support TAMD journal
- Special Issues, Outstanding Award
3. Continue integration of ICDL and EpiRob communities
- Genoa = 4th joint meeting
- Establish a joint Governing Body
4. TC name change
- Recommendations/report from ad-hoc committee 13

14. Agenda 2014 TC Meeting TC Name change Conference IEEE TAMD AMDTC TFs
To be conducted at the October 2014 Conference (Genoa)
TC Name change
Discuss recommendations of ad-hoc committee
Conference
Joint ICDL-EpiRob to continue with Providence 2015
Merging of ICDL GB and EpiRob Steering
IEEE TAMD
State and update on new impact factor
Best Paper Prize
AMDTC TFs
Reassess number, size, and productivity of TFs 14

15. AMDTC Task Forces TF Name Chair Action and Perception Jun Tani
AMD Newsletter
Piere-Yves Oudeyer
Developmental Psychology
Thomas R. Shultz
Education
Katherina Rohlfing
Human-Robot Interaction
Tony Belpaeme
Language and Cognition
Katerina Pastra
Robotics
Minoru Asada
Web Presence
TBA 15

16. Action and Perception Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/1)
Chair: Jun Tani (Korea)
Vice-Chair(s): Giorgio Metta (Italy)
Members:
Bruno Lara (Spain)
Gordon Chen (German)
Erhan Oztop (Turkey)
Stefano Nolfi (Italy)
Tetsuya Ogata (Japan)
Jochen Triesch (German)
Albert Ali Salah (Turkey)
Activities in the first half of 2014
1. The iCub workshop at ICRA in Hong Kong in June 2014 organized by Giorgio Metta was supported by the technical committee.
2. Jochen Triesch and his colleagues are organizing the 19th Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience, which will be held in Frankfurt, Germany during August 3-30. 16 16

17. TF Newsletter Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
Chair: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (France) (chair and editor)
Members:
Fabien Bénureau (France) (associate editor)
Activities in 2014:
Two issues of the Newsletter (Spring and Fall)
Each newsletter contains the following section: Editorial, Message from the AMD TC Chair, Dialog (and Dialog initiation for next issue), Reports of AMD related conferences/workshops, Call for papers and participation, Table of contents of IEEE TAMD articles (with abstracts)
A central piece of the newsletter is the dialog column. The editor solicits a well-known researcher to propose a dialog on a topic of interdisciplinary interest to the AMD community, and then solicits answers from key relevant researchers.
The Newsletter is sent electronically to around 1500 researchers (AMD mailing list), and available in open-access on the internet. 17 17

18. TF Newsletter Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2) Fall 2013 dialog:
Initiation by Peter Ford Dominey: How are Grammatical Constructions Linked to Embodied Meaning Representations?
Discussants: Brian McWhinney, W. Croft, A. Knott, M. Arbib and V. Barres, J. Weng
Spring 2014 dialog:
Initiation by Katerian Pastra: Autonomous Acquisition of Sensorimotor Experiences: Any Role for Language?
Discussants: Rick Dale, Katharina Rohlfing, Katrin Lohan, Benjamin Koch, Alessandra Sciutti, Gary Lupyan, Catriona Silvey, Kerstin Fisher, Emmanuel Dupoux 18 18

19. Developmental Psychology
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
Developmental Psychology
Chair: Thomas R. Shultz Deputy Chair: Denis Mareschal
Members:
Gedeon O. Deák Brian Scassellati Matthew Schlesinger
Sylvain Sirois Linda B. Smith John P. Spencer
Michael Thomas Jochen Triesch Kim Plunkett
Gert Westermann
Activities in 2014:
Linda Smith and colleagues published these paper covering robotic models of child development phenomena.
Oudeyer, P., & Smith, L.B. (in press) How Evolution may work through Curiosity-driven Developmental Process. Topics in Cognitive Science.
Grzyb, B. J., Del Pobil, A. P., & Smith, L. B. (2012). How walking influences the development of absolute distance perception. In From Animals to Animats 12 (pp ). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 19

20. Developmental Psychology
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2)
Developmental Psychology
Chair: Thomas R. Shultz Deputy Chair: Denis Mareschal
Members:
Gedeon O. Deák Brian Scassellati Matthew Schlesinger
Sylvain Sirois Linda B. Smith John P. Spencer
Michael Thomas Jochen Triesch Kim Plunkett
Gert Westermann
Activities in 2014:
Those two papers will be part of planned workshop, "Pathways of Cognitive Development" workshop at ICDL/EpiRob in Genoa.
2. Together with Minoru Asada and Matthias Rolf, Matthew Schlesinger and Jochen Triesch are organizing a pre-conference workshop entitled "Computational Models of Infant Development“ on July 2, It will be co-located with the ICIS conference in Berlin. For details see: 20

21. TF Education Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/2)
Chair: Katharina J. Rohlfing (Germany)
Vice-Chair(s): Vadim Tikhanoff (Italy)
Members:
Gustaf Gredebäck (Sweden)
Juyang Weng (USA)
Chen Yu (USA)
Jun Tani (South Korea)
Yulia Sandamirskaya (Germany)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
Dialogue initiation „Trained on everything“: Discussion about interdisciplinary education
Virtual courses in Developmental Robotics with experts planned for Fall 2014 21 21

22. TF Education (2) Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/2)
Dialogue initiation TAMD Newsletter:
Discussion on interdisciplinary education is initiated in the current TAMD Newsletter
Virtual class room:
Currently:
Syllabus for virtual seminar
Soliciting teachers / experts and testing software for live courses within the virtual classroom
Advertizing virtual seminar at the ICDL 2014
Fall 2014:
First virtual seminar in Developmental Robotics 22 22

23. TF Human-Robot Interaction
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
TF member Brian Scassellati is co-chairing the Cognitive Science conference in The conference pans a joint robotics exhibition that spans both Cognitive Science and AAAI (which is co-located).
The TF was intensely involved in the organisation and the directing of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. HRI2013 (Tokyo, Japan, 3-6 March 2013) and HRI2014 (Bielefeld, Germany, 3-6 March 2014). 23 23

24. TF Human-Robot Interaction
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
TF member Yukie Nagai organized the Workshop on "HRI: a bridge between Robotics and Neuroscience" at HRI2014. The goal of the workshop was to bridge the gap between HRI studies and cognitive modelling and developmental modelling studies.
TF member Verena Hafner co-organised the German-Israeli Minerva School on Cognitive Robotics, February 24-27, 2014 in Berlin, Germany ( and the Dagstuhl Seminar on Spatial Reference in the Semantic Web and in Robotics, March 31-April 4, 2014 at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany ( 24 24

25. TF Human-Robot Interaction
Task Force Report for June 2014 (3/3)
TF Human-Robot Interaction
Chair: Tony Belpaeme (UK)
Members:
Stevo Bozinovski (USA)
Kerstin Fischer (Denmark)
Verena hafner (Germany)
Yukie Nagai (Japan)
Brian Scassellati (USA)
Activities in 2014 for IEEE Education:
TF chair Belpaeme gave a lecture series on “Cognition, Social Interaction and Cognitive Robots”at the Interdisciplinar College (IK2014, Germany,
TF member Hafner presented at the Workshop on „Attention Models in Robotics: Visual Systems for Better HRI“, HRI2014, Bielefeld, Germany (March 3, 2014). )
TF member Fischer will publish a book on “Designing Speech for a Recipient” in which she analyses the mechanisms of formulating for a particular communication partner by comparing speech to children, to foreigners and to robots. 25 25

26. Language & Embodied Cognition
Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Chair: Katerina Pastra (CSRI, Greece)
Vice-Chair(s): Nikolaos Mavridis (New York Uni., United Arab Emirates)
Members:
Yiannis Aloimonos (U. Maryland - Cognitive Vision, USA)  
Jean-Christophe Baille (Aldebaran Robotics – Language Learning, France)
Anna Borghi (U. Bologna - Language and Embodied Cognition, Italy)  Angelo Cangelosi (U. Plymouth – Language-Action Learning, U.K.)
Daniel Casasanto (Max Planck Inst. Psycholinguistics - Language& Metaphor, Netherlands)
Stephen Cowley (U. Hertfordshire – Distributed Language Perspective, U.K.) 
Stefano Nolfi (CNR - Robotics and Language, Italy) 
Katharina Rohlfing (U. Bielefeld - Language meaning development, Germany) 
Yulia Sandamirskaya (U.Bochum – Theory of Cognitive Systems, Germany) 
Stephanie Tellex (MIT - Human Robot Interaction and Language, USA) 
Address of the group: 26 26

27. Language & Embodied Cognition
Task Force Report for June 2014 (2/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Activities in first semester 2014 for IEEE Language & Cognition:
1. Organisation of a Symposium in AISB 2014 entitled:
“Embodied vs. Simulated Behaviour and Cognition: What could Robotics contribute to Language Sciences?”
Organisers: K. Pastra, S. Cowley, N. Mavridis
Invited Speakers: Prof. Roger Moore (Univ. Sheffield) and Prof. Paul Vogt (Univ. Tilburg)
2. Organisation of a Tutorial in LREC entitled:
“When Semantic Language Resources meet Cognitive Systems”
Tutor: K. Pastra 27 27

28. Language & Embodied Cognition
Task Force Report for June 2014 (3/3)
Language & Embodied Cognition
Activities in first semester 2014 for IEEE Language & Cognition:
3. IEEE CIS-AMD Newsletter Dialogue Initiation (published in Fall 2013 with replies in Spring 2014) :
“Autonomous Acquisition of Sensorimotor Experiences: Any role for Language?”
Initiator: K. Pastra
Replies by: R. Dale (Uni. Of California), E. Dupoux (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), K. Fischer (Uni. Of Southern Denmark), G. Lupyan (Uni. Of Wisconsin-Madison), K. Rohlfing (Uni. Of Bielefeld) and C. Silvey (Uni. Of Edinburg) 28 28

29. TF Robotics Task Force Report for June 2014 (1/1)
Chair: Minoru Asada (Japan)
Vice-Chair(s): Giorgio Metta (Italy)
Members:
Luc Berthouze (UK)
Gordon Cheng (Germany)
Yiannis Demiris (UK)
Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japan)
Yasuo Kuniyoshi (Japan)
Tetsuya Ogata (Japan)
Rolf Pfeifer (Switzerland)
Activities in 2014 for Robotics:
Giorgio Metta and Giulio Sandini (Robotics TF) will organize ICDL-EpiRob 2014 in Genoa during October 13 – 16, 2014.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, Rolf Pfeifer, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi (Robotics TF) will organize a workshop on Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics (tentative) during ICDL-EpiRob 2014. 29 29