September 22nd
3:00pm
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David Quinto [email]
Department of Linguistics
Then There's Modality: What the Deaf and Deaf-Blind have to say about
language
Over the last three decades, linguists have examined language in the
visual-gestural modality. American Sign Language and European sign languages
have received the most attention, but studies of Asian, Middle-Eastern,
and Latin American sign languages have also been conducted. Striking
similarities to spoken language have become evident through this research,
but interesting differences have also been pointed out.
In addition, recent work on sign language as it is used by Deaf and
Blind people in this country has revealed some differences between tactile
signed language and American Sign Language as it is used by sighted
Deaf people.
Based on this preliminary work on tactile signed language, we will
discuss some of the differences and similarities between the structure
and form of language in the visual-gestural and tactual-gestural modalities.
Of course, we will also make comparisons to auditory-oral language (i.e.,
spoken language) throughout our discussion.
By examining language in different modalities--paying attention to
what is similar as well as what is different across modalities--we can
hope to come closer to a general theory of language and the brain.
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October 6th
3:00pm
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Adrian Agogino [email]
[web]
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Collective Intelligence
There are many problems that can only be solved by the joint action
of large communities of computers each running a sophisticated machine
learning algorithm, where those algorithms are not subject to centralized,
global control. Examples are routing of air traffic, control of swarms
of spacecraft, routing of packets across the Internet, control of multiple
Mars rovers and communication between the multiple processors in a modern
computer. The mathematics of "COllective Intelligence" (COINs) is concerned
with the design of multi-agent systems in order to optimize an overall
global utility function when those systems lack centralized communication
and control.
Typically in COINs each agent runs a distinct Reinforcement Learning
(RL) algorithm so that much of the design problem reduces to how best
to initialize/update each agent's private utility function, so as to
avoid their working at cross purposes as far as the global utility is
concerned. Traditional "team game" solutions to this problem assign
to each agent the global utility as its private utility function. In
our work we used the COIN framework to derive the alternative "Wonderful
Life Utility" (WLU), and experimentally established that having the
agents use it induces global utility performance up to orders of magnitude
superior to that induced by use of the team game utility.
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October 20th
3:00pm
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Dr. Gerhard Werner [email]
[web]
Department of Biomedical Engineering
The Return of Simon's Ant
Starting from the premise that all cognitive systems (human and artefactual)
are dynamical systems, I will sketch briefly the trajectory of evolution
of the various stages of the symbolicist and the connectionist hypotheses.
This is to set the stage for the recent challenge by the dynamicist
theory of cognition, which I will discuss in some detail. The principle
illustrated by the brief parable of "Simon's ant" will then serve to
illustrate the role of complexity for Cognition: I will consider it
as a promising, though essentially neglected, extension of the dynamicist
theory to view cognizers and environment jointly as complex interacting
systems. I will suggest that this aspect has not received the attention
it merits, despite the promise it holds for a more realistic understanding
of cognition, both human and artefactual.
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November 3rd
3:00pm
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Prof. Brad Love [email] [web]
Department of Psychology
Modeling Human Category Learning
Current models and findings in human category learning research will
be considered. Human learning data from a variety of learning modes
(including inference-based and classification learning) will be
overviewed. Two models (ALCOVE and SUSTAIN) will be applied to the
data. ALCOVE is an exemplar based model that performs abstraction by
interpolating among stored examples. In ALCOVE, all abstraction is
indirect. SUSTAIN is a clustering model that recruits clusters in
response to prediction errors. In SUSTAIN, all abstraction is direct.
Although both models are very different, they tackle the human
learning data in the same fashion. Still, the complete pattern of
results favors SUSTAIN's account of human learning -- it appears that
what is stored in memory depends critically on the structure of the
learning problem and the learning mode engaged.
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November 17th
3:00pm
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UT Robotics Laboratory [web]
Patrick Beeson [email]
[web]
Joseph Modayil [email] [web]
Jefferson Provost [email] [web]
Department of Computer Sciences
R2D2, Where Are You?
Robot navigation requires a cognitive map. The Spatial Semantic Hierarchy
is a multilevel representation of the cognitive map. We will discuss
our research in implementing the SSH on physical and simulated
robots. The Intelligent Wheelchair Project provides a test bed for these
ideas, as well as other interesting ideas which are independent of the
SSH domain. Control, topology, learning, attention, vision, and speech
are some of the topics which will be covered in this presentation.
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December 1st
3:00pm
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Prof. Michael Benedikt [email]
Robert Turknett [email]
Center for American Architecture and Design
UT Department of Architecture
The Omega Files: Complexity, Organization, Evolution, and Preference
This talk will report mostly theoretical work out of my forthcoming
book A General Theory of Value. Beginning with the work of theoretical
biologists Daniel Brooks and E.O. Wiley (based in turn on physicist
David Layzer's ideas of cosmogenesis), I will outline a way of thinking
about the "proper" growth and balance of complexity, C, and organization,
R, that keeps natural systems alive as well as artificial life systems
interesting and self-perpetuating. The significant and to-be-optimized
variable, I will argue, is what I call "omega," the geometric mean of
C and R formulated in Shannon-and-Weaver-like terms.
Rob Turknett will demonstrate TokenTrade, his quasi-ALife economic
system based on this theory, live and online. Other sorts of evidence
for Omega-optimality will be presented too, from DNA codon-sequence statistics
to LIFE and Sugarscape, to operant conditioning schedules, to preference
for melodies, to human information processing limits...which the lecture
itself will hope to breach.
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