[fod] Fri 24/5/2 Seminar on Evolutionary computation and cognitive science

[Janet Wiles <janetw@itee.uq.edu.au>]

Speaker: Janet Wiles, ITEE and Psychology
Date:    11am Friday 24 May 2002 (and lunch afterwards at the Pizza cafe)
Room:    78-420 (Gp-South)

Evolutionary computation and cognitive science: Strange loops in evolution
and learning

This talk brings together two usually disparate fields - cognitive science
and evolutionary computation (EC).  The first part of the talk provides a
brief review of four main theories of cognitive architecture - the
classical, connectionist, embodied and evolutionary perspectives. The
second part of the talk reviews three case studies of how simulation
studies have been used to explore theoretical issues in EC of relevance to
CogSci researchers: (1) genetic assimilation (the Baldwin effect) and
conditions under which it does and does not occur in silico; (2) genetic
redistribution (a new effect in EC simulations); and (3) evolution of
language. Note that these are all studies in silico (ie computational
simulations at an abstract level).