PhD OPPORTUNITIES

NEW: PhD Studentship Opportunity for (excellent) International candidates, Deadline: 28th January 2024

As part of the Paris Region (Ile-de-France) DIM C-BRAINS project 2023-2024 International PhD studentship program, I am advertising the topic Modeling Affective Cognition in Bio-Inspired Social Robotics. A short abstract is below, for a fuller description including research questions and planned work click on the link, for eligibility criteria click here. If you are interested, apply here before the 29th January 2024.

Typical PhD Topics in Embodied Emotion, Cognition, and Interaction in Autonomous Social Robots and Artificial Life Simulations

Below are some of the research topics/areas I am always happy to supervise. Applications are invited from excellent candidates with good first and Master degrees in computer science, cognitive science, biology, neuroscience, cybernetics, psychology, or other relevant disciplines to work as research students with Prof. Lola Cañamero (Lola.Canamero@cyu.fr, www.emotion-modeling.info). No specific funding is available at the moment, but get in touch if you would be interested in doing a PhD with me. Projects are available regarding various aspects of Embodied Emotion, Cognition, and Interaction in Autonomous Social Robots and Artificial Life Simulations, from a biologically-inspired embodied perspective that emphasizes and models the roles that the body and physical and social interaction play in embodied affective cognition, primarily in (but not limited to) the areas listed below.

Please visit emotion-modeling.info/videos for videos of related projects in our lab.

  1. Emotional (Hormonal) Modulation of Cognition-Action: e.g., in decision making, memory, learning, motivational processes, the dynamics of behavior control, bodily representations, the development of awareness.

    In biological systems, emotions are part of the bioregulatory mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance of the stability of an organism's internal environment (to its viability and homeostasis), which is needed to survive in changing (external) environments. Emotions and their expression are also key components of social interactions in humans and other animals, serving as mechanisms for communication, signaling, directing attention, motivating and controlling interactions, assessing situations, etc. As put forward by Darwin, they also have a number of survival-related functions: for example, anger energizes and prepares the body for action, fear enhances features that facilitate escape from predators and other dangers, etc. Both aspects are relevant for autonomous and social robots that must inhabit and survive in dynamic environments presenting similar kinds of challenges, particularly the natural environments of humans.

    Emotions interact with motivational and cognitive processess by acting on (modulating) the global 'state' of the organism, including bodily state and cognition-action interactions. This research proposes to investigate similar types of regulatory systems for robots. Research will be conducted into the adaptive value of different affective phenomena to modulate and control the behavior and interactions of autonomous robots in physical and social environments, and to contribute to aspects such as decision making, memory, learning, motivational processes, the dynamics of behavior control, bodily representations, and the development of awareness. Suitable mechanisms and architectures underlying such affective phenomena will be investigated and implemented, taking inspiration from theories and findings from disciplines such as affective and cognitive neuroscience, biology, ethology, developmental psychology, and the psychology of emotion. This research will have a strong component of experimentation and testing using robotic scenarios and suitable methods for quantitative and qualitative analysis of results.

  2. Developmental and Epigenetic Robotics: the development of affective systems; affective and cognitive development in human-robot interactions.

    Developmental or "epigenetic" robotics is an area that investigates how robots can acquire new sensorimotor, affective, cognitive and behavioral capabilities as a consequence of their interactions with the physical and social environment, in ways that are akin to the development of (human and non-human) infants. A challenging (and as yet largely unexplored) topic within this area is the study of the relationships between emotional and cognitive development, and in particular how affective mechanisms influence the development of cognitive and behavioral mechanisms and skills. In robotics, one of the possible projects along this line would investigate the influence of affective mechanisms in the development of (neural) controllers for autonomous and social robots.

  3. The Evolution of Affective Systems and Affect Expression in Autonomous Agents and Robots.

    From the perspective of evolution, emotions can be regarded as adaptive mechanisms that arose to better face significant survival-related events that recurred in evolutionary history. Artificial life and robotics can contribute to the understanding of how our emotions became what they currently are by simulating in computers and robots how they could have evolved under different environmental conditions and in response to various evolutionary pressures. Different projects could be developed within this general theme, depending on the background and interests of the candidate. The projects would investigate, in an artificial life environment and ideally also using physical robots, the evolution of a subset of emotion-related systems and (expressive) behaviors as a function of diverse evolutionary pressures, putting particular emphasis on social interaction and dynamics. Another aspect that would be of particular interest involves the interactions between the evolution (at the level of the species) and the development (at the level of individuals) of emotional systems.

  4. Affective Social Cognition and the Dynamics of Affect-Based Relationships in Social Groups.

    Social animals can have very complex social relations and structures. Some of them are somewhat rigid, based on "family" and ''dominance'' relations. Others form in a more dynamic way, based on the history of (positive and negative) affect-based interactions among individuals, or as emergent phenomena in social situations (e.g., phenomena such as emotional contagion). The proposed project would involve building artificial societies (simulated and possibly robotic) as tools to study how some of these relations and phenomena can develop and affect social dynamics on the grounds of a few relevant parameters that can be varied and analyzed in different ways.

  5. Affective Robot Companions:

    Projects would be available to further develop and test affective autonomous companion robots. As an example, see Robin, developed to help children improve their confidence and skills in managing their diabetes. Please visit Robin's website for further information about Robin.

  6. Embodied Computational Psychiatry (Robots and Mental Health): Autonomous Robots as Embodied Models of Mental Disorders.

    Different projects would be available to develop and test autonomous robot models of affect-related mental disorders as part of our research on Autonomous Robots as Embodied Models of Mental Disorders, which aims to explore dysfunctions of affective cognition in humans and other animals, and bring embodiment into the area of Computational Psychiatry. Please visit the project's website for furthern information.