TENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS

This interdisciplinary conference is attended each year by approximately 300 people from 30 countries around the world. As in previous years, the conference will focus on solutions to the questions:

HOW DOES THE BRAIN CONTROL BEHAVIOR?
HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY EMULATE BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE?

The conference is aimed at researchers and students of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, neural networks, neuromorphic engineering, and artificial intelligence. It includes invited lectures and contributed lectures and posters by experts on the biology and technology of how the brain and other intelligent systems adapt to a changing world. The conference is particularly interested in exploring how the brain and biologically-inspired algorithms and systems in engineering and technology can learn. Single-track oral and poster sessions enable all presented work to be highly visible. Three-hour poster sessions with no conflicting events will be held on two of the conference days. Posters will be up all day, and can also be viewed during breaks in the talk schedule.

CONFIRMED INVITED CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Alfonso Caramazza (Harvard University), Objects, actions, nouns and verbs
Jonathan Cohen (Princeton University), Dopamine-norepinephrine interactions in the regulation of exploration versus exploitation
Alain Destexhe (CNRS [UNIC]), Inferring network activity through intracellular recordings of single neocortical neurons in vivo
Kenneth Ford (Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition), Toward cognitive prostheses (Plenary Lecture)
Martin Giese (University Clinic Tuebingen), Neural correlates of learning in the visual recognition of human actions
Graham Hitch (University of York), Serial order in the verbal domain: Short-term memory and long-term learning
Glyn Humphreys (University of Birmingham), Learning to ignore and learning to attend: Evidence from visual search
Patricia Kuhl (University of Washington), Research on language: Bridges between neuroscience and education
Jitendra Malik (University of California at Berkeley), Ecological statistics of grouping and figure ground discrimination
James McGaugh (University of California at Irvine), Amygdala activation and the making of lasting memory
Baingio Pinna (Universitŕ di Sassari), The laws of figurality and watercolor, discoloration, lighting and backlighting illusions: Phenomenal properties and neural mechanisms
S. Murray Sherman (University of Chicago), The role of thalamus in cortical function: Not just a simple relay
Jean-Jacques Slotine (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Concurrent synchronization of artificial neural assemblies
Anne Treisman (Princeton University), Broad or narrow focus of attention: How does it determine what we see?
Misha Tsodyks (Weizmann Institute of Science), Context-dependent learning in the visual system

CELEST Workshop on Auditory and Visual Attention
Robert Desimone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Synchronous neural activity and selective attention
Jon Driver (University College, London), Crossmodal links in human spatial attention
Michael Goldberg (Columbia University), On the agnosticism of spikes: Multiple signals in the parietal salience map
Stephen Grossberg (Boston University), Cortical dynamics of attentive auditory and visual information processing and learning
Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland, College Park), The role of attention in rapid plasticity
Steven Yantis (Johns Hopkins University), Domains of attentional control

NSF Science of Learning Centers Symposium

Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience (CCEN)
Scott Grafton (Dartmouth College), What can we learn from cognitive and educational neuroscience?

Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST)
Stephen Grossberg (Boston University), CELEST goals
Daniel Bullock (Boston University), Learning in cognitive-emotional interactions and planned sequential behaviors
Gail Carpenter (Boston University), Learning in attentive recognition, technology, and education

Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE)
Philip Bell, John Bransford, and Maritza Rivera-Gaxiola (University of Washington), Learning for the twenty-first century: Toward a decade of synthesis

The LearnLab Center
Kenneth Koedinger (Carnegie Mellon University) and Kurt VanLehn (University of Pittsburgh), Using LearnLab to understand robust learning through rigorous experimentation in real courses

SESSION TOPICS

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Contributed abstracts must be received, in English, by January 31, 2006. Email notification of acceptance will be provided by February 28, 2006. A meeting registration fee must accompany each Abstract. The fee will be returned if the Abstract is not accepted for presentation and publication in the meeting proceedings. Fees of accepted Abstracts will be returned on request only until April 14, 2006.

Each Abstract must fit on one side of an 8.5" x 11" page with 1" margins on all sides in a single-spaced, single-column format with a font of 10 points or larger. The title, authors, affiliations, and surface and email addresses should begin each Abstract. An accompanying cover letter should include the abstract title; corresponding author and presenting author name, address, telephone, fax, and email address; requested preference for oral or poster presentation; and a first and second choice from the topics above, including whether it is biological (B) or technological (T) work [Example: first choice: vision (T); second choice: neural system models (B)].

Talks will be 15 minutes long. Posters will be up for a full day. Overhead, slide, VCR, and LCD computer projector facilities will be available for talks. Accepted Abstracts will be printed in the conference proceedings volume. No extended paper will be required.

Four copies of the abstract should be mailed to Cynthia Bradford, Boston University, CNS Department, 677 Beacon Street, Boston MA 02215 USA. Abstracts may also be submitted electronically as M/S Word files to cindy@bu.edu using the phrase “10th ICCNS abstract submission” in the subject line. Fax submissions will not be accepted.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: Early registration is recommended using the registration form below. Student registrations must be accompanied by a letter of verification from a department chairperson or faculty/research advisor. The registration fee will help to pay for a conference reception, 3 daily coffee breaks, and the meeting proceedings volume.

STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS: Fellowships for PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows are available to help cover meeting travel and living costs. The application deadline is January 31, 2006. Applicants will be notified by email by February 28, 2006. Fellowship applications cannot be accepted electronically and must be submitted as paper hardcopy to the abstract submission address shown above. Each application should include the applicant's CV, including name; mailing address; email address; current student status; faculty or PhD research advisor's name, address, and email address; relevant courses and other educational data; and a list of research articles. A letter from the listed faculty or PhD advisor on institutional stationery must accompany the application and summarize how the candidate may benefit from the meeting. Fellowship applicants who also submit an Abstract need to include the registration fee payment with their Abstract submission. Fellowship checks will be distributed after the meeting.

REGISTRATION FORM