15th Herbstakademie - Embodied Cognition and Embodied Communication

This conference will focus on cognition, social cognition and action. The Herbstakademie series has traditionally put specific consideration on dynamical systems concepts, such as pattern formation, dynamics, and attractors. A further and related focus has been embodied cognition. Embodiment emphasizes the fact that cognition is embedded both in a body and the further physical context. Cognition is viewed to critically depend on external, bodily parameters that drive and constrain mental processing. In self-organization theory, such parameters are labelled control parameters, which initiate the formation of emergent patterns in complex systems. Topics of the meeting include:

Self-organization / synergetics / dynamics of cognition
Relations between neural and mental descriptions
Neurocognition, social neurocognition
Embodiment and interaction
Embodied artificial intelligence

The number of participants is limited to 80. The conference language is English. This symposium is 15th in the series of Herbstakademie meetings dedicated to the topic of complex systems in psychology, cognitive science and related disciplines. Information on previous meetings of the Herbstakademie community is provided here. Several Herbstakademie proceedings are available.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Karl J. Friston (Institute of Neurology and Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, U College London, UK) web abstract
Karl Grammer (Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology, U Vienna, Austria) web abstract
Hermann Haken (Institute of Theoretical Physics, U Stuttgart, Germany) web abstract
Rolf Pfeifer (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, U Zurich, Switzerland) web abstract
Gün R. Semin (Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, U Utrecht, the Netherlands) web abstract
Corrado Sinigaglia (Department of Philosophy, U Milan, Italy) web abstract
Fritz Strack (Chair of Psychology II, U Würzburg, Germany) web abstract

Change announcements:
- Evan Thompson unfortunately had to cancel his participation.
- We are very pleased to announce that Gün R. Semin accepted our invitation to hold a Keynote Lecture on embodiment.

ORGANIZERS

Wolfgang Tschacher
University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern,
Laupenstrasse 49, CH-3010 Bern
tschacher@spk.unibe.ch
web

Jean-Pierre Dauwalder
Department of Psychology, University of Lausanne,
BFSH 2, CH-1015 Lausanne
jean-pierre.dauwalder@unil.ch
web

additional Herbstakademie series organizers: E.J. Brunner (Jena, Germany), H. Atmanspacher (Freiburg, Germany)