PI Lecture

Abstract Actions affect perception directly and in multiple ways, exerting their influence (1) by modifying parts of the external world, (2) through internal processes accompanying movement preparation, and (3) through the sensory consequences of moving the sensory surface itself (i.e., in vision, the retina). To understand these influences, psychology and neuroscience have long recognized the

Reasoning (or planning, rational decision making) seems a core aspect of intelligence -- but what exactly does that mean? If we observe clever behavior in an animal, can we claim it is based on reasoning? And doesn't the success of deep RL show us that we (as engineers) do not need reasoning? I'll discuss reasoning

Abstract: More than three decades ago, it was proposed that certain natural systems can be viewed as self-organized critical systems, which self-tune themselves to special regions in parameter space close to so-called critical points, where the behavior of a system exhibits a qualitative change at the macroscopic scale, i.e. it undergoes a phase transition. Over

 ABSTRACT: Central theories of learning in human agents emphasize that the quality of instruction and interaction between agents is of high importance for effective knowledge transfer. On the other side, within-agent characteristics such as a certain level of emotion and motivation is required to participate in social interactions. Consequently, the interplay between characteristics of social

Abstract: Event-based cameras, also called neuromorphic cameras or silicon retinas, are novel vision sensors that mimic functions from the human retina and offer potential advantages over traditional cameras (low latency, high speed, high dynamic range, bandwidth savings, low power, etc.). My previous talk was about event-based cameras for Spatial AI. In this talk I will

Abstract: Scalability can be challenging in groups of collaborating agents, such as animals, robots, or computers. While a small group may work efficiently together, a bigger group may be slowed down due to increased needs to communicate and synchronize or due to other scarce shared resources. We go through a number of examples for observed

Abstract: In the cognitive-, behavioral- or neuro-sciences we often match a computational model to observations and then, analyzing the model, hope to find results that generalize to the underlying system. With deep neural networks (DNNs) quite powerful function approximators are available that can be fitted to huge data sets, accelerated by cheap hardware and elaborate

What's on a mouse's mind? Behavioral measures to understand experiences and needs of an animal Lars Lewejohann, Freie Universität Berlin, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), German Centre for the Protection of Laboratory Animals (Bf3R) Mice, as all other living creatures, have adapted to specific living conditions in the course of evolution. From a

"Harnessing machine learning to model biological systems" Abstract: Classically, models of biological systems follow two different approaches. In bottom-up approaches, biological data are used to constrain a phenomenological model of the system in question, and the model is the studied to identify potential functions or potential consequences of the observations that flow into the model.

One fundamental difference between human and non-human animals is the ability of humans to instantaneously implement instructed behaviour. While other animals acquire new behaviour via effortful trial-and-error learning or extensive practice, humans can implement novel behaviour based on instructions. This ability is presumably a key aspect of cultural learning. In my talk, I will discuss

More details to follow.

Abstract: I will discuss research on a powerful biological model system, the natural clonal fish Amazon molly. Mothers in this female-only species produce genetically identical offspring, allowing us to employ an experimental twin study approach to address some of the most fundamental questions associated with behaviour and the development of behaviour. Do twins separated directly