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In July 2020, Arianna Felisatti, Jochen Laubrock, Samuel Shaki and Martin Fischer published A biological foundation for spatial–numerical associations: the brain’s asymmetric frequency tuning (doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14418), in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
On current occasion, the members of the PECoG-group Katharina Kühne and Melinda A. Mende have published an article in the journal InMind. The article was published in June 2020 and is entitled Noli me tangere! Unser peripersonaler Raum in den Corona-Zeiten (in German language). The topic of the article is the peripersonal space and how it changes as a result of the pandemic.
The article is available online at: https://de.in-mind.org/article/noli-me-tangere-unser-peripersonaler-raum-in-den-corona-zeiten
In June 2020, the PECoG-group celebrated Prof. Fischer's birthday with a small get-together.
In the end of 2019, the PECoG-group hosted the Workshop Learning from Humanoid AI: Motivational, Social & Cognitive Perspectives. The workshop took place from 30th of November to 1st of December 2019 at the university of Potsdam. Dr. Zhou und Prof. Fischer organized the workshop together with Prof. Rebecca Lazarides.
Keynote-speakers were Prof. Tony Belpaeme and Prof. Oliver Bendel, among others.
Contributions to the workshop will be publisehd in a special issue in the journal Paladyn - Journal of Behavioral Robotics.
For further information visite the website of the workshop: https://embracingai.wordpress.com/
In April 2020, the PECoG-group had a virtual lab-meeting due to the COVID-pandemic situation. The meeting was very sucessful - the exchange between the members went smoothly. Until further notice, all forthcoming lab-meetings will be held in a virtual way.
In March 2020, the journal Frontiers in Psychology published an research topic with the titel "On the Development of Space-Number Relations: Linguistic and Cognitive Determinants, Influences, and Associations" as an e-book. The PECoG-group has three publications in this research topic. These are:
The complete e-book is available on the webseite of the journal.
In March 2020, Arianna Felisatti, Jochen Laubrock, Samuel Shaki and Martin Fischer published a "Commentary: A mental number line in human newborns"
(doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00099), in Frontiers Human Neuroscience.
In January 2020, Prof. Fischer and her PhD student Arianna Felisatti gave talks in the symposium on "Spatialization in number processing: boundary conditions and amplifierson", at the 38. European Workshop in Cognitive Neuropsychology (Bressanone).
Our Virtual Reality Project on subcortical affordances benefited greatly from a visit by Or Rabani (Haifa University), who can here be seen building her own equipment to measure micro-affordances.
The this year’s theme „Zehn“ (ten) was a good occasion to invite the
temporary city’s visitors to question their usual way of finger counting and
to realize that the way we perceive and operate with numbers is heavily
dependent on our ten finger counting habits For this purpose, the 31st of
August, Dennis Höpfel, Arianna Felisatti, Vivien Peddinghaus and Umut Vural
developed a game challenging people of any age to portray numbers by using
their fingers in an unusual way while being as fast as possible. Moreover,
they provided a symbolic activity involving the visitors to "give an hand"
to make the forests flourish.
ww.stadtfuereinenacht.de | ww<wbr />w.facebook.de/<wbr />stadtfuereinenacht
There are currently two funded PhD studentships (each for 3 years at 65% full-time) available at the Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group.
One basic research project studies the relationship between body movements and numerical cognition. Ideal candidates have a Master degree in experimental psychology and specific skills in kinematic and kinetic analyses. Start date is between December 2019 and April 2020.
The other interdisciplinary and applied project develops an augmented reality training for desaster management. Ideal candidates have a Master degree in psychology with focus on stress assessment and additional skills in VR programming. Start date is January 2020.
Please contact the lab leader Prof Fischer for further details or to submit your CV and motivation letter.
Dr Yuefang Zhou serves as a guest editor of a special issue on “Learning from Humanoid AI: Motivational, Social and Cognitive Perspectives” in Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics. This thematic special issue is devoted to the publication of high-quality research papers, in part, to be presented at the International Workshop: Learning from humanoid AI: Motivational, Social and Cognitive Perspectives. The aim of the workshop is to address some of the fundamental questions in human-robot interaction, for example, are there some general principles of human-robot interaction that can inform robot designs in different fields including healthcare, education and entertainment? How can we learn from different perspectives to utilize common principles for improved human-robot interaction?
Call for submissions is now open and can be found here
In July 2019, Prof Fischer, Prof Shaki and their doctotral candidate Arianna
Felisatti attended the Workshop "The Mind's Spatialization in Humans and
Non-humans" that took place in Nice, France. Arianna Felisatti presented her
poster "From Brain's Specialization to Numbers' Spatialization".
In July 2019, Melinda Mende, a menber of the PECoG group, published a mini-review article with the title "Alcohol in the Aging Brain – The Interplay Between Alcohol Consumption, Cognitive Decline and the Cardiovascular System". The article is in English language and can be downloaded here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.00713.
On a trip to Tel Aviv Prof Fischer met with his collaborators, Prof Danny Algom (center), Dr Tatiana Hatukai (left) and and Hofit Bar (right). Tatiana has recently discovered the Rodin effect on attention; Hofit studies quantitative food perception.
Professor Oliver Bendel from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland was giving a guest lecture on 23 May 2019. He was hosted by Dr. Yuefang Zhou from the PECoG group. Professor Bendel’s talk is entitled “Fundamentals and Artifacts of Machine Ethics” (http://oliverbendel.net/<wbr />index.html). His talk slides can be requested for by emailing Dr Zhou (yuezhouuni-potsdamde).
On 1st of May Prof Fischer was interviewed on national radio RadioEins about the research strategy of our lab with regard to emotional links between humans and machines. The interview (held in German) can be found here:
On 26 April, Jacek Zloczowski (leftmost person in picture) visited the weekly PECoG lab to receive some inspiration for their own CogSci lab developments. Also among the guests were members of the Neuraltrain company who are collaborating with us to develop a mood-enhancing app.
On the 28th of May 2019 (19–20:30), Dr. Yuefang Zhou gave a talk on the topic "The Future of Sexuality" in the framework of the Ring-lecture "Reale Utopien". The talk took place in the Museum of Hygiene (Hygienemuseum) in Dresden.
Open the following link for further information:
https://www.dhmd.de/veranstaltungen/kalender/veranstaltungsdetails/238/2019-05-28/
The full talk can be found here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7kohyxlQOs&list=PL9m-8TwqccMEcekZedYtCR1rOXXoldzpg&index=56&t=0s
The book "AI Love You – Developments in Human-Robot Intimate Relationships" , edited by the PECoG group, is being published now.
The book summarizes the topics of the workshop "AI Love You" that the PECoG group hosted in december 2017.
As part of his Research visit to the Lab of Prof. Anna Borghi at Sapienza University Rome, Prof. Fischer has organized with her a workshop on Abstract concepts. Details can be found here:
In March 2019, Dr. Yuefang Zhou visied the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR (Italian National Research Council) in Rome. The photo shows her discussions with Dr. Amedeo Cesta, vice-president of the Italian Association of Artificial Intelligence, on collaborative ideas using the Sanbot Elf robot.
In February 2019, the students of the master-program "Cognitive Science - Embodied Cognition" sucessfully completede their experimental training with a poster presentation. The training was instructed by Dr. Miklashevsky.
In January 2019, Arianna Felisatti presented her poster "Position prevents Precision" at the 37. European Workshop in Cognitive Neuropsychology which took place from 21st to 25th of January in Bressanone, Italy.
As part of his Research Internship in the Master Course "Cognitive Science - Embodied Cognition", Umut Vural is generating a virtual reality software to study finger counting.
In January 2019, Prof. Fischer published a commentary together with our collaboratuer Prof. Shaki from Ariel university in Israel in the journal Nature. The titel is "How to make talks less boring".
Here is the article: Fischer & Shaki 2019
The article is also avaible online: https://www.nature.com/<wbr />articles/d41586-019-00153-6
Research by our group was mentioned in a TV documentary about sexual behaviours in the digital age. Prof Fischer was interviewed about special personality attributes of people who might have intimate relationships with humanoid robots and reports findings about the relation between interoception and embodiment (video segment from 4min20 to 5min40, German only).
Link to the mediathek: http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/?mode=play&obj=77949
In December 2018, our research fellow Alex Miklashevsky successfully defended his thesis in Russia. The PECoG group congratulates him.
Dr. Zhou and Prof. Fischer participated in a discussion on the future of AI that is broadcast on national radio. Our contributions touched upon the Kismet robot (9min:40sec), the ICub robot (12:30), a visit to Realbotix (14:20), the possibilities of sex therapy with humanoid robots (15:40) and the need for general risk asssesment for new technologies (17:00).
The broadcast is in German language. Open the following link to listen to it:
https://www.ndr.de/info/sendungen/forum_am_sonntag/Alexa-mach-mir-einen-Kaffee,audio463944.html
In December 2018, Dr. Oksana Tsaregorodtseva from Tomsk University in Russia (http://cognitio.tsu.ru/en/staff/oksana-tsaregorodtseva/ )gave a talk at the University of Potsdam and visited the PECoG group. The topic of her talk was "The effect of a word on visuospatial working memory".
In November 2018, Dr. Yuefang Zhou who works at the Charité Berlin and who is an associated scientist of the PECoG group gave an interview to the local newspaper "Märkische Allgmeine Zeitung" (MAZ). The topic was her research on social robots.
The article is in German language and is available online: http://www.maz-online.de/Nachrichten/Kultur/Sozialwissenschaftlerin-Yuefang-Zhou-im-Interview-ueber-kuenstliche-Intelligenz-und-Sex-Roboter
In November 2018, Prof. Shaki who is an associate researcher of the group from Ariel University in Israel visited the group in the in the framework of the workshop “Cross-domain semantic priming – language and arithmetic” that the group hosted. This gave the occasion to also have a meeting toghether with Arianna Felisatti who is a doctoral candidate in the group. Her project is part of the new DFG project and it is co-supervised by Prof. Shaki.
In November 2018, the PECoG gruop successfully hosted the workshop “Cross-domain semantic priming – language and arithmetic". The pictures show impressions of both the workshop and the dinner that the group had together with the speakers.
In november 2018, Elena Sixtus received the Doctor's degree. The PECoG group proudly congratulates her on this success. On the picture, Dr. Sixtus wears an impressive hat that represents her work in the PECoG lab.
In October 2018, we celebrated the kick-off of a new DFG-funded Research Project on "heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic" with Professor Sam Shaki from Ariel University as our international collaborator.
In September 2018, Dr. Youfang Zhou represented the PECoG group with a poster presentation at the "Social Robots" conference in Hamburg.
This September, the PECoG group celebrated Arianna Felissatti's birthday with some delicious tiramisu.
Cognitive scientists seek to identify mechanisms of thought that apply across domains.
Consider the relation between language and arithmetic: both domains arguably describe
real-world facts, thus perhaps explaining the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics”
(Wigner, 1960).
Syntactic priming between these two domains has been documented by Scheepers,
Myachykov, and colleagues (2011, 2014), semantic alignment effects were documented by
Bassok and colleagues (2008). Yet, Ronasi and colleagues (2018) failed to find semantic
priming. Why do linguistic statements such as “Everyone except John goes to school” not
prime a subsequent subtraction (e.g., “10 – 4”), by inducing faster solution compared to
when the same problem is preceded by a statement like “Nobody except John goes to
school”, which might instead prime addition? Why did it also fail the other way around?
We wish to address this topic, inform each other about recent progress, develop a set of
promising experimental paradigms, and submit a pre-registered report based on cross-
laboratory replications.
Confirmed participants
For further details please contact Prof Martin H Fischer per email at martinfuni-potsdamde
This July, Arianna Felisatti sucessfully completed her internship in the PECoG group.
This July, Dr. Marco Fabbri from University of Caserta gave a guest lecture in our group.
This July, Dr. Michal Pinhas from Ariel University visited the Pecog group and gave a guest lecture.
In June 2018, the Pecog group hosted a lab demonstration, which was held by the company IMotions.
In June 2018, the PECoG group had a nice picknick together.
In April 2018, the american linguist Daniel L. Everett visited the univesity of Potsdam and joined the PECoG group for a lab demonstration and for dinner.
In winter 2017, the PECoG group hosted the international workshop "AI Love You".
The PECoG group organized and hosted the 20th meething of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology ESCoP.
