New Frontiers of HRI Symposium CfP

For the second year running, I'm involved in the organisation of the 5th Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction, which will be held as part of the AISB convention on the 5th and 6th of April 2016, in Sheffield (U.K.). It's a very nice little event that has a strong emphasis on discussion, and so a very nice venue for meeting people, exchanging thoughts, and getting new ideas to inform your research.

So come and join us there!

All details are on the symposium submission page, but in the meantime, feel free to contact me or one of the other oganisers (Maha Salem, Astrid Weiss, and Kerstin Dautenhahn). Oh, and the submission deadline for papers is Monday the 11th of January, so get writing!

Recent Social Robotics Conferences

In the past couple of weeks, I've been fortunate enough to attend a couple of conferences concerned with social robotics - one of the main foci of my research work. Attending conferences is always an enlightening experience for a range of reasons - catching up with familiar faces, meeting new ones, and getting new insights and perspectives on various aspects of my work.

The first of these was a new conference, called New Friends. It is generally focused on social (though not always) robots for therapy and education applications, though the majority of work seemed to be more related to therapy, with quite a number of practitioners present, in addition to the more robotics-oriented researchers and organisations. As the first iteration, it was relatively small, though I am intrigued to see how it develops: for now, the second edition has been arranged to take place in Barcelona next year. I presented a short paper on some ongoing work I'm conducting on the potential use of touchscreens to characterise behaviour of children with ASD as they interact with a robot. If you're interested, you can find the paper here (paper number 27 in the oral sessions section). The abstract is as follows:

Robots are finding increasing application in the domain of ASD therapy as they provide a number of advantageous properties such as replicability and controllable expressivity. In this abstract we introduce a role for touchscreens that act as mediating devices in therapeutic robot-child interactions. Informed by extensive work with neurotypical children in educational contexts, an initial study using a touchscreen mediator in support of robot assisted ASD therapy was conducted to examine the feasibility of this approach, in so doing demonstrating how this application provides a number of technical and potentially therapeutic advantages.

The second conference was the International Conference on Social Robotics, a far more established conference, this time in its seventh iteration. Bigger, but not by much, this conference does cover a wide range of topics and approaches, with nominally social robots being the common factor. Both the PhD students I co-supervise presented papers (which can be found here and here), which was great, and which seemed to be received well. I myself presented at the WONDER workshop some random thoughts squished into the semblance of a coherent argument about the wider implications of robots in classrooms. The paper can be found here, with the following abstract:

Robots are being increasingly used in schools by researchers keen to assess how they may be used to facilitate learning and provide support. Based on 15 school experiment visits at 9 different schools in the U.K., we outline our observations, specifically focusing on the broader implications of robots in the classroom primarily from the perspective of the teacher. We then outline the basis for future research considerations in HRI, centred around the three themes of pedagogy, methodology, and ethics. For further application of robotics to education, we suggest that these three themes need to form a central part of continuing research.

New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction CFP

I'm involved in the organisation of a symposium that will be held in April 2015: New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction. Part of the AISB 2015 convention in Canterbury (U.K.), this symposium seeks to bring together HRI researchers to present and discuss their work in the context of ongoing and emerging challenges in the field. It will be a two-day event, which will be held between the 20th and 22nd of April 2015 (the actual two days within that have yet to be confirmed).

In previous years there has been an emphasis on facilitating discussions on the various topics raised by the speakers, and this year is no different. There will be a couple of keynote talks, a range of talks based on accepted papers, and panel sessions - all interspersed with ample time to pick up and discuss the issues that come up. I went to the symposium last year, and found it an enjoyable and thought-provoking event. I therefore (somewhat predictably perhaps!) thoroughly recommend it.

We would be very happy to encourage anyone in the field to submit a paper - indeed, even those from outside the field if they have something interesting/relevant to say! Please see the submissions page for more instructions. And then when you would eventually like to submit a paper, then you can use our submission system (hosted by EasyChair).

Looking forward to seeing you at the symposium!

HRI 2014 Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Human-Robot Interaction

I am co-organising a half-day workshop at the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction next year (HRI'14), that will be held on the 3rd of March 2014 in Bielefeld, Germany. If you have any interest in this topic, or even would just like to find out more, please consider joining us! We have intended that this will be an inclusive event, with a high discussion content, and an emphasis on dissemination of ideas that will hopefully influence ongoing (social) Human-Robot Interaction research.

I've been interested in cognitive systems, cognitive robotics and cognitive architectures for a while now as my interest (and subsequent research) is in exploring general principles of cognition/intelligence, both for understanding natural systems and for the development of 'better' robotic systems (to test theories and accomplish tasks). I think that Human-Robot Interaction provides a fascinating context to explore cognitive architectures, as it provides a very different set of challenges to theory and implementation than have typically been considered. Hence the workshop!


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CALL FOR WORKSHOP SUBMISSIONS AND PARTICIPATION

HRI 2014 Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Human-Robot Interaction

Monday 3rd March, 2014 (Bielefeld, Germany)

http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/socce/staff/paulbaxter/cogarch4hri/

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IMPORTANT DATES
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** Submission deadline: Friday 10th January, 2014
** Notification of acceptance: Monday 20th January, 2014
** Final (accepted) submission: Friday 7th February, 2014
** Workshop: Monday 3rd March, 2014 (half day)

DESCRIPTION
***********
Cognitive Architectures are constructs (encompassing both theory and models) that seek to account for cognition (over multiple timescales) using a set of domain-general structures and mechanisms. Typically inspired by human cognition, the emphasis is on deriving a set of principles of operation not constrained to a specific task or context. This therefore presents a holistic perspective: it forces the system designer to initially take a step back from diving into computational mechanisms and consider what sort of functionality needs to be present, and how this relates to other cognitive competencies. Thus the very process of applying such an approach to HRI may yield benefits, such as the integration of evidence from the human sciences in a principled manner, the facilitation of comparison of different systems (abstracting away from specific computational algorithms), and as a more principled manner to verify and refine the resultant autonomous systems.

For HRI, such an approach to building autonomous systems based on Cognitive Architecture, 'cognitive integration', would emphasise first those aspects of behaviour that are common across domains, before applying these to specific interaction contexts for evaluation. Furthermore, given inspiration from human cognition, it can also inherently take into account the behaviour of the humans with which the system should interact, with the intricacies and sub-optimality that this entails.

To date, there have been relatively few efforts to apply such ideas to the context of HRI in a structured manner. The aim of this workshop is therefore to provide a forum to discuss the reasons and potential for the application of Cognitive Architectures to autonomous HRI systems. It is expected that by attending this workshop and engaging in the discussions, participants will gain further insight into how a consideration of Cognitive Architectures complements the development of autonomous social robots, and contribute to the cross-fertilization of ideas in this exciting area.

SUBMISSION AND PARTICIPATION
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Contributions are sought from all who are interested in participation. A light-touch review process will be applied to check for relevance - the emphasis of the workshop is on inclusion, discussion and dissemination. Prior to the workshop, the organizers will integrate these into a list a perspectives that will form the basis for the discussions.

Please prepare a 2-page position paper on your research-informed perspective on cognitive architectures for human-robot interaction (particularly social). The HRI template should be used for this submission (ACM SIG Proceedings). Submissions should be sent to: paul.baxter(a)plymouth.ac.uk All accepted position papers will be archived on the workshop website.

ORGANISERS AND CONTACT
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** Paul Baxter (Plymouth University, U.K.) and Greg Trafton (Naval Research Laboratory, USA)
** Email: paul.baxter(a)plymouth.ac.uk

Robotics and Legal Responsibility

With robotic devices increasingly prevalent in 'real life', and the prospect of ever more autonomous robots, there is a need for legislation to be updated to reflect the changing conditions. An article I read on Wired a few days ago reminded of an EU project that started last year: RoboLaw, which has the aim of exploring how emerging robotics technologies influence and are affected by the law (see also this, which I've just come across). This issue is brought into sharper focus in the case of something going wrong, where the question of responsibility arises. For instance, there's been a lot going around in recent months on the autonomous car efforts of Google and others. If there were to be a crash, who would take the blame? Would it be the manufacturer in the obvious absence of driver error, or perhaps those responsible for road/signalling maintenance? Indeed, would the technically possible autonomy be scaled back to maintain direct human oversight in order to mitigate the potential legal minefield? While there have been some legislative attempts to address this, there clearly is a way to go.

Individual researchers actually working on the supporting technologies have increasingly considered the implications, and potential implications, of their own field of research, typically focusing on the ethics involved in the (proposed) applications. Indeed, a couple of years ago now, I wrote something on the consequences of my ongoing work on memory in the context of human-robot interaction, though my effort was more directed at the possible legal implications of memory system technologies than ethics. The paper considered the implications of new computational means of providing the function of memory (specifically the use of sub-symbolic networks). It specifically proposed that as a consequence of the details of the technologies potentially used, current privacy legislation may not be suitable to account for new generations of autonomous social robots.

In my view, this is a small example of a wider need to consider the actual technologies in (proposed) use when considering legislative requirements - hence a need for the scientific/engineering community to engage with the legislative process (and therefore vice versa). However, in order for this to be effected, I feel that it would be beneficial to have common perspective or approach on the part of the researchers, which even if not unified is at least coherent. With one of the main deliverables of the project intended to be a white paper recommending regulatory guidelines to European legislators, this project has the potential to help provide this.

MATLAB alternatives (free, of course...)

I don't use MATLAB very much at the moment, or even in recent years. Production of a couple of graphs perhaps, maybe a little data processing, but nothing that can't really be done using any other piece of software available to me (MS Excel, LO Calc, or a bit of my own code). I have used MATLAB extensively in the past, mostly Simulink though, for some signal processing and control stuff, so know it can be a very useful tool. However, given my current MATLAB inactivity, and that where I work doesn't have an endless supply of licenses for research (and these are fairly expensive as you may have noticed...), it seems that my occasional use can be easily covered by the open-source/freeware.

The main options seem to be Octave and SciLab. Both are open-source and free, and can be used in Linux, Windows or MacOS (I like cross-platform compatibility...). As open-source 'versions' of MATLAB, both of have at least some degree of compatibility with it. Although there seems to be some disagreement on which is closest to full MATLAB compatibility, from what I've read while only briefly looking a little further into it, Octave tries to maintain the same syntax (so aiming for m-file compatibility, and treating any deviations from this as bugs), whereas SciLab offers a tool for conversion. I think that a similarity to MATLAB in terms of functionality and syntax is beneficial because of its pervasive nature, and the subsequent opportunity to share resources.

In terms of a comparison between these two in a more computationally technical sense (comparison of calculations, plotting and syntax with MATLAB), see this tech report, which also mentions another possible candidate too - FreeMat. This report concludes that Octave does actually offer a viable alternative to MATLAB, with limitations found in both SciLab and FreeMat.

Why did I write a post on this? Mostly just because I want a record of these links for myself, but partly because hopefully someone else will find this useful too.

CFP: AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy

An upcoming event with which I have a minor involvement is the 4th incarnation of the AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, which is due to take place in Birmingham, U.K., between the 2nd and 6th of July 2012. The AISB convention is this year being held in conjunction with the International Association of Computing And Philosophy (IACAP), and will mark the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birthday. There are 16 different symposia at this convention in all, all with varying emphases on the interaction between AI/Computing and Philosophy. For those of bent in that particular direction, there will be plenty to attract your attention!

An overview of the Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, from the website:

Turing’s famous question ‘can machines think?’ raises parallel questions about what it means to say of us humans that we think. More broadly, what does it mean to say that we are thinking beings? In this way we can see that Turing’s question about the potential of machines raises substantial questions about the nature of human identity. ‘If’, we might ask, ‘intelligent human behaviour could be successfully imitated, then what is there about our flesh and blood embodiment that need be regarded as exclusively essential to either intelligence or human identity?’. This and related questions come to the fore when we consider the way in which our involvement with and use of machines and technologies, as well as their involvement in us, is increasing and evolving. This is true of few more than those technologies that have a more intimate and developing role in our lives, such as implants and prosthetics (e.g. neuroprosthetics).

The Symposium will cover key areas relating to developments in implants and prosthetics, including:

• How new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) / computational intelligence (CI) look set to develop implant technology (e.g. swarm intelligence for the control of smaller and smaller components)

• Developments of implants and prosthetics for use in human,  primate and non-primate animals

• The nature of human identity and how implants may impact on it (involving both conceptual and ethical questions)

• The identification of, and debate surrounding, distinctions drawn between improvement or repair (e.g. for medical reasons), and enhancement or “upgrading” (e.g. to improve performance) using implants/prosthetics

• What role other emerging, and converging, technologies may have on the development of implants (e.g. nanotechnology or biotechnology)

But the story of identity does not end with human implants and neuroprosthetics. In the last decade, huge strides have been made in ‘animat’ devices. These are robotic machines with both active biological and artificial (e.g. electronic, mechanical or robotic) components. Recently one of the organisers of this symposium, Slawomir Nasuto, in partnership with colleagues Victor Becerra, Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley, developed an autonomous robot (an animat) controlled by cultures of living neural cells, which in turn were directly coupled to the robot's actuators and sensory inputs. This work raises the question of whether such ‘animat’ devices (devices, for example, with all the flexibility and insight of intelligent natural systems) are constrained by the limits (e.g. those of Turing Machines) identified in classical a priori arguments regarding standard ‘computational systems’. 

Both neuroprosthetic augmentation and animats may be considered as biotechnological hybrid systems. Although seemingly starting from very different sentient positions, the potential convergence in the relative amount and importance of biological and technological components in such systems raises the question of whether such convergence would be accompanied by a corresponding convergence of their respective teleological capacities; and what indeed the limits noted above could be.

For more information, see the symposium website. For those interested in submitting a paper, the deadline for submissions is the 1st of February 2012.

Robotic companions in the news

There was a minor flurry of media activity a week or so ago concerning the ALIZ-E project, just after the university put out a press release:

-> "Robot Companions to Befriend Sick Kids at European Hospital" in the IEEE Spectrum magazine.

-> "Cyber Sensitive: Therapeutic Buddy Bots Get Emotional" in Scientific American.

-> And a bit closer to home, is "Robots developed in Plymouth to befriend sick children" on the BBC Devon News website.

In a somewhat surreal event, we were also invited for a radio interview, in which our Nao robot was a speaking guest!

There seems to be a common picture with all of these stories (probably because it appears on the ALIZ-E project homepage) - at least it's a good one :-)

ALIZ-E videos and dancing robot

With my work on the ALIZ-E project, I get to play around (by play, I mean work...) with the Nao humanoid robot (it's a cute little thing). One of things I've been getting it to do recently is dance. Actually, a summer project student did most of the low-level implementation (the time consuming definition of angle joints etc), so I've just been dealing with how to use these behaviours. This video is the first and really simplistic example:

The video is actually pretty poor quality, and I've somehow managed to squash the picture (my first awful attempt at a youtube video...), but it shows the Nao moving around (even if calling it 'dancing' is a bit of a stretch at the moment). I've set up a You-tube channel on which I will put more (and better quality) videos in the future of our Nao robots engaging in interesting behaviours related to the ALIZ-E project.

What is a PhD?

I like this pictorial description of what a PhD is supposed to be. Not a perfect metaphor (the increasingly important training aspect, for U.K. institutions at least, isn't really incorporated), but it's nice nonetheless. Whilst it could be interpreted as a bit bleak, I would say it puts things into a little perspective :-)

A slow shift to cloud computing...

This is my first post in a while, I realise. I can't promise that this is the start of more frequent posting, but can say that I still like the idea of blogging (in preference to all these twitter-like update methods, including facebook updates, which I see as ultimately pointless and a little annoying, except for in very limited contexts), and don't want this little blog to die completely...

...and now moving on.

Cloud computing approaches and applications have been around for a while, and are becoming ever more prevalent. It's quite involved, but they are essentially those programmes that run on a remote networked server, and which are accessed on client machines connected to the network. This often includes the storage of content generated by these applications too - for example, word processing using googledocs. In the past, I've been very resistant and a bit mistrusting of these applications. Partly I think because I like to have everything to hand on my local machine, without having to be dependant on an internet connection - an obvious prerequisite for cloud computing applications - partly because of space limitations on online storage, and partly because of security of data. However, in recent months, I've been using more and more applications that have a cloud-like aspect to them, particularly regarding the storage of data. So for example, I've become particularly addicted to using Tomboy Notes as a note-taking program, especially the cross-platform support, and integration with UbuntuOne (where you can access, view, edit and create notes). Also, I was recently introduced to Mendeley, described as a research management tool (incorporating academic networking tools, and literature statistics, etc), but for me most usefully can be used as a reference management system (using a desktop component). The reference library in this case is held in the cloud, linked to a personal account, and synced with local machines where desired. I'm not completely familiar with it yet, but I'm getting to like it. Finally, I'm now an avid user and admirer of Dropbox, which is a great document sync tool. Anybody with further experiences of either of these tools, or indeed with similar tools I haven't mentioned, then please let me know.

Back to my point. It is that the ability to access personal data, often in a proprietory format, from any computer regardless of operating system and installed programs is a very useful tool. However, the additional functionality afforded by locally running programs (such as the integration between a word processor and a reference manager) means that I'm not going to go completely into the cloud just yet.

A brief update - and Twittering

I've not posted on here for a while now. I'm in the process of writing up my PhD thesis now, and additional writing for this blog is beyond me at the moment. I don't, however, want this blog to die as I wish to continue using it to post notes and thoughts as I (hopefully at least...) begin a career in academia.

Incidentally, I have recently given in to a certain amount of hype, and a personal recommendation, and signed up to Twitter (with the alias one_paulie). Now, at this moment in time, I don't see it being a particularly useful tool (or even a very interesting one), but there was one potential use which I thought deserved further investigation: the use of Twitter as a live-update conference tool. Not been to a conference yet where I've noticed its use, but I'm going to two in September (ECAL and ICAIS if anyone's interested, and wants to have a chat with me there?) and want to see if it actually has some practical use.

I've put a sidebar on this page (on the right hand side of this page) with my Twitter feed, it'll most likely get more activity than this blog for the time being (but then probably mostly focused on conference and/or paper related activities)...

Kary Mullis: Celebrating the scientific experiment

Over on TED, I've just watched a talk given by Kary Mullis (a Nobel Prize winner for his invention of the PCR technique) on the history of the scientific experiment. The video was posted only in January, but was apparently filmed It's a fairly rambling talk, but he tells some interesting and funny stories, from history-discussing surfers, to space faring frogs (well, nearly), and seems generally critical of the state of reporting in modern science.

Encephalon #63

Of Two Minds has just put up the 63rd edition of Encephalon. A nice round-up as usual, with congratulations of course going to Omnibrain on his good fortune... :-p My three highlights as usual:

- Brain Blogger brings us a short piece on serotonin: specifically, how the genetic basis of the serotonin system, and the natural variation in the system as a result of individual genetic differences, results in different susceptibilities to anxiety, depression etc. Possibly also responsible for certain differences in personalities (seems sensible to me, but then I imagine that there are many drivers for ones personality). The interesting question then arises though of whether medicine should be used to make up for some of these individual differences. A fascinating question, whose answer has wide ranging consequences.

- Are birth defects the result of traumas that the mother has been subject to? This question with a seemingly obvious negatory answer is tackled by Vaughan over at Mind Hacks. The theory known as 'maternal impression' was well known in the 19th century, but passed out of use in the late 19th century. However, in the second half of the 20th century, a number of studies showed that severe maternal stress did have an effect on the children's brain development. Vaughans article is well worth the read.

- And finally, the question of Free-Will! PsyBlog reviews three fascinating studies on how manipulating people's views on free-will (by getting them to read statements either for or against the concept of free-will) led to their behaviours being modified. A decreased belief in free will led to people being less helpful towards others, and even increased agression! Which leads to a view that a belief in free will is beneficial to society. The concepts free-will and determinism (as promoted by science) must however be reconciled since our society is fundamentally based on the former, and increasingl on the latter.

Encephalon #59 @ Ionian Enchantment

Recently put up is the latest edition of Encephalon, at Ionian Enchantment. I'll get around to posting something other than links to the Encephalon editions sooner or later, but I'm afraid my blog is less of a priority than getting work done for my PhD... :-) Anyways, my three posts of particular interest in this fortnight's compilation:

- From Mind Hacks is a short piece on the Ganzfeld procedure: a method often used to induce hallucinations. Is it just me, or is the last hallucination that Vaughan mentions slightly disturbing...

- Physical exercise and 'brain health' from Sharp Brains

- Something that I found of particular interest is a review of a paper by Clark and Wheeler on Embodied cognition and cultural evolution, at Neuroanthropology. It's a long (but very good) review of the paper and the concepts involved, but helpfully some of the more important points are highlighted. Essentially, the problem is as follows (copied from article):

Whereas embodied cognition models the brain as a product of dynamic
interplay among processes at different time-scales — evolutionary,
developmental, and immediate –, evolutionary psychologists tend to assume the
existence of underlying, enduring structures in the brain, shaped by natural
selection and encoded (even where we cannot find evidence) in genetic
structures.

As far as I'm concerned a fascinating review of a paper which I will now endeavor to get my grubby little hands on...

Encephalon #58 at Highlight Health

Didn't get around to it yesterday, but the latest Encephalon has been put up at Highlight Health. With the special theme of Decision Making, I particularly like the organisation of this one, with submissions put into one of four categories: needs, preferences, values and emotions. The contributions aren't half bad either! :-)

- A look at peoples ability to perform multiple tasks at once - or rather a lack of it... from SharpBrains

- On confabulation, brain damage and the lack of a role for memory? From the BPS Research Digest blog

- Something I've sort of mentioned before: a brief review of definitions of intelligence from Brain Blogger

Robotics walking aid

This looks interesting, even if a tad uncomfortable...

I did a (very) quick google search on it - why is it so difficult to any information on things that haven't been digested through multiple news corporations? The Honda website provides a few more details though.

Encephalon #57 at Mind Hacks

Internet problems at home have prevented me from posting, so after a 5-day delay, I can finally say that Encephalon #57 is up at Mind Hacks. It's an excellent compilation as usual, with posts on infantile amnesia, long-term potentiation and memory erasing particularly catching my eye.

I've not been posting much recently (have spent my days recently sitting in front of a screen attempting to programme an embodied developmental-like cognitive architecture, so sitting in front of a screen any more to write and post on the blog hasn't really been in the forefront of my mind), but in the coming week, watch out for posts on pain (and its developmental role), and perhaps also one on the mirror neuron debate.

Encephalon #56

Welcome to the 56th edition of Encephalon, here at Combining Cognits. After the emerald anniversary a fortnight ago, I felt I had to find some significance for this issue number – and so I turned to the infinite wisdom of Wikipedia and found the answer (wait for it...):

56 (fifty-six) is the natural number following 55 and preceding 57.

So there we have it. Who said Wikipedia was useless* :-) Anyways, moving swiftly on, we have in this edition we have a nice range of submissions, though dual themes seemed to emerge: Anti-social behaviour, and the somewhat predictable Brains (code for 'I can't quite find a category to cover the rest, even though they're each interesting')**.

o~~~~~~o

Anti-Social Behaviour

With anti-social behaviour being of growing concern in the U.K. at least, with multiple thousands of complaints to the authorities every day, a recently published paper in Biological Psychiatry on cortisol and aggressive behaviour has received a lot of media attention. This paper has been taken up by two of our submitting authors. The Neurocritic provides us with an overview of the paper, highlighting the differing levels of cortisol in subjects with a “Conduct Disorder” with control subjects when performing a frustrating game. Daniel at Neuroanthropology also looks at this paper, but he takes a much more critical line, and broadens his discussion to much wider issues: from criticising the methodology of the study itself, to the media hyping almost beyond recognition (a pet hate for most people methinks), and a commentary on general societal attitudes towards misbehaving youths. A nice discussion piece I feel.

One factor which has pointed to as being a major contributor to anti-social behaviour is alcohol. Besides the social effects, the personal and physiological effects are very pronounced. Jared at Brain Blogger takes us through some of these effects – what it does to cells and tissues, and the potential effects (albeit on a longer time-scale) on the bodily organs and brain, specifically mentioning Korsakoffs syndrome (which has in past been the subject of my personal interest).

One property of alcohol which can make its effects far worse (and which is in common with narcotic substances) is that it can be very addictive, which may lead to the personal and social problems previously mentioned. Dr. Shock brings us an overview of addiction, and raises the possible use of deep-brain stimulation methods to counteract it. (In a pertinent post, Vaughan at Mind Hacks recently posted a list of DBS-related applications)

Going back to our theme of anti-social behaviour: let's say the police pick you up and charge you for some transgression of the law. However, the media (here at least) seems to delight in telling the occasional story of how some obviously guilty (and non mentally impaired) crook has got off free (or lightly at least) with a tale of mental problems. Now clearly, each case must be taken on its individual merits (and I wish to make no general statement regarding the validity of any such claims of mental impairment), but Joshua at Science Blog takes us through a problem with such a legal defence. Given that cognitive science holds that all human behaviour comes from the 'brain' (or more generally the CNS), to say that your brain 'made you do the deed' is a perfectly accurate statement in all cases. In Joshua's words: “...most people prefer that the legal system only punish those who are responsible for wrongdoing. If we exclude from responsibility everybody whose actions are caused by their brains, we must exclude everybody.” There's a bit more to it than that though: what if someone has a genuine problem which has not yet been characterised?

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Brains, and everything else...

Jared of Brain Blogger brings us a summary of a paper on the impairments in empathy that many people suffer after undergoing a traumatic brain injury. However, it is not as simple as it may first appear: there didn't appear to be a relationship between severity of the brain trauma and the empathy deficiency, nor could the low empathy scores be predicted by measures of emotion.

Next comes a subject very close to my own interests: Chris Hallquist of Biology of Mind discusses consciousness and qualia, though particularly pointing out the shortcomings of introspection.

Dan of “Sports are 80% Mental” brings us a review of a paper on the six elements of a momentum chain: elements of a sporting event which, when they occur, have an effect on the performance of the athletes, and the outcome of the game, and which typically result from a “precipitating event”. An interesting perspective on the effect of affect and cognition on sport, and things can change very quickly.

Walter of Highlight Health reviews a study of the molecular characterisation of brain tumours, which is based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). In the words of Walter, the TCGA “...is an integrated network of clinical sites, core resources and specialized genome characterization and genome sequencing centers that work together to accelerate our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer”. This study in particular identified a number of pathways central to brain tumours, and importantly used a “...statistically robust number of samples...”. The post provides the details, so best not to rely on my paraphrasing.

With two late entries, we have a review of a book by James Zull on teaching methods based on the neurobiology of learning, and a review of recent developments in cognitive health and brain fitness, both from SharpBrains.

o~~~~~~o

And finally, if you're short of reading, we have from Neuroanthropology a compilation of links on various subjects – particularly the section on “The Brain”.

That's it from me and this edition, I hope it has approached the level of interest and quality I have come to expect from Encephalon. In a fortnight's time, the 57th edition will be brought to us by the ever stimulating Mind Hacks. Submissions in the usual fashion: send a title, URL and summary to encephalon.host ~at~ gmail ~dot~ com.

o~~~~~~o

* Incidentally, I don't – I'm just being facetious. As a first stop (followed by many other more academically reputable stops), it can be a very useful resource for general indicative definitions and pointers to more information.
** Although I have to admit, I have performed some very unsubtle shoe-horning to fit the entries to these themes – for which I apologise.

Encephalon #55

The 55th edition of Encephalon (the 'emerald aniversary' edition) is now up at Neuroscientifically Challenged. My three picks as usual:

- Five points on why, even though absolutely important and fascinating, neuroplasticity has been overstated (or mis-stated at least), from Neuroanthropology. I particularly agree with point four, which states that "...much of the story of neuroplasticity is in developmental settings, in the normal interactions and activities that occur during childhood..." - an aspect very much understated, though I'd say implicitly assumed.

- From the ever thorough Mo at Neurophilosophy comes a review of Developmental topographagnosia - a disorder that essentially leads to a difficulty in producing cognitive maps, as Mo says: "It therefore seems plausible that a reluctance to form cognitive maps, starting from an early age and continuing throughout life, could result in a reduced capacity for the hippocampus to perform this particular function." For me, this seems to lead on nicely from the neuroplasticity post - development of the individual as being of central importance.

- Finally, from Neuronism comes a nice little article on computational neuroscience - building general models and theories in order to make predictions.

The next edition of Encephalon will be held here at Combining Cognits on October the 13th, so get your posts written and readied, and send them to encephalon {dot} host {at} gmail {dot} com as usual. Until then!