May CogNav webinar
Under foot, earth turns: practical mastery and the Evenki experience of place
Speaker: Pablo Fernandez Velasco
Registration: https://rin.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1638518&group=
The present work explores the link between navigational processes and the experience of place by considering the case of Evenki reindeer herders and hunters. I build on my ethnographic fieldwork as well as on the analysis of previously existing research within anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. The Evenki, a Tungusic people spread over northern Asia, are renowned for their hunting and navigational skills. Ethnographers have also highlighted the particularities of the Evenki experience of place, which is characterised by a pervading sense of freedom within an alive and responsive environment. The present analysis shows how the idiosyncratic wayfinding methods of the Evenki result in a unique experience of place — a case that elucidates the important question of the impact of navigational processes on environmental experience.
Bio: Pablo Fernández is pursuing his research on the phenomenology of disorientation at Institut Jean Nicod (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), and he is a visitor at the Spatial Cognition Lab of University College London. The focus of his work is on how space structures human experience. He specialises in spatial cognition and in phenomenology. He follows an interdisciplinary approach, actively collaborating with neuroscientists, architects, geographers and anthropologists.
April CogNav webinar
An introduction and brief history of autonomous vehicles and their mapping and positioning systems
Speaker: Dr Michael Milford
Video of the talk here
Autonomous vehicles were heralded as a transformative technology and have received substantial investment and attention from the largest global technology and automotive companies. However, despite attracting much of the top technical talent, this technology has so far failed to become a deployed reality beyond niche applications and pilot trials. In this talk I'll provide an overview of the history of autonomous vehicle development, their key components including mapping and positioning systems, and touch on some of the key technical, societal and economic challenges they face.
Bio: I conduct interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision and am a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. My research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. Amongst a range of ongoing projects, from 2022 - 2027 I will be leading a large research team as part of an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, attempting to combine bio-inspired and computer science-based approaches to provide a ubiquitous alternative to GPS that does not rely on satellites. I am also passionate about engaging and educating all sectors of society around new opportunities and impacts from technology including robotics, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence. I currently hold the positions of Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Joint Director of the QUT Centre for Robotics, QUT Professor, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and am a former Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.
March CogNav webinar: Supporting spatial navigation
Spatial navigation requires tracking and remembering where we are and where we are going. Although our brains contain the same neural apparatus used by rodents - place cells, grid cells, head direction cells - people can navigate by relying on a broad range of tools, including maps, signs, and even language or gesture. In this talk, I discuss our research on how various tools can support spatial navigation, or not. Using real and virtual environments, our work shows that navigation tools are not panaceas, at best providing access to information that can be difficult to glean. Yet, research on the neural representation of spatial directions may show how they might be made more effective for a broader range of navigators, including those with navigation impairments.
Jan CogNav webinar: Human Navigation Without Vision
Human navigation without vision: seeing with our ears and tongues through advances in sensory substitution and augmented reality
Speaker: Dr Michael J. Proulx
Vide of the talk here
Our senses transmit information about the external world into electrochemical signals that the brain uses to allow us to determine what is where around us. Humans most often rely on vision for rapidly assessing the environment. When vision is obstructed or if a person has a visual impairment, then the other senses must compensate, and this is where technology can help by creating auditory or tactile displays that represent images. Here I will explore advances in sensory substitution and augmented reality, and how "seeing" with auditory and tactile displays can enable object recognition, localisation, and navigation.
Biography
Dr Michael J. Proulx is Reader in Psychology and Director of the Crossmodal Cognition Lab at the University of Bath. He is also Co-Director of the REVEAL Research Centre (REal & Virtual Environments Augmentation Labs), Co-Investigator for CAMERA 2.0 (Center for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications), and a doctoral supervisor in the Centre for Digital Entertainment and ART-AI (Accessible, Responsible, and Transparent Artificial Intelligence) in the Department of Computer Science. He is a Fellow of the Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science of the American Psychological Association and Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He is currently on a two-year sabbatical at Facebook Reality Labs Research in Redmond, Washington. Twitter: @MichaelProulx
https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/michael-proulx
Oct CogNav webinar: Movement is the measure
Movement is the measure: views on your body in space
Speaker: Dr Fiona Zisch Video of her talk here
The modern architect Le Corbusier described the experience of space and architecture as “appreciated while on the move, with one’s feet…; while walking, moving from one place to another. … A true architectural promenade [offers] constantly changing views, unexpected, at times surprising” . Walking, moving in time in space, is foundational to spatial experience and, indeed, spatial design. The postmodern choreographer Steve Paxton, interested in the potency of pedestrian movement, relatedly suggested that “dance explores some of the physical possibilities; dance refocuses our focusing mind […] time, space, gravity open up to creativity” . In this talk, I will use a cognitive lens to examine architectural and choreographic views on movement and suggest how concepts from cognitive science, architecture, and choreography relate and can mutually inform one another. Drawing on the experimental performance ‘An Allocentric View’ (2019), I will examine how movement underlies connections formed between space and body; dynamic, continuous, and reciprocal, movement allows us to experience space. In turn, understanding this connection movement allows architects and choreographers to compose in and for space and cognitive science to explore foundations of spatial navigation.
Biography
Dr Fiona Zisch works across architecture, cognitive science, and choreography. Her research explores cognitive ecologies with a focus on intuition and embodiment and how ‘neuroarchitecture’ as transdisciplinary threshold might develop more radical, critical, and progressive thinking. Fiona gained her PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, UCL. She lectures on the Bartlett MArch Design for Performance and Interaction where she runs the Research Pathway ‘Radical Realities’ and leads History and Theory. She is a collaborator in the UCL research group Spierslab and also lectures at the School of Architecture at the University of Innsbruck.
8th International Conference on Spatial Cognition
We are pleased to announce the 8th International Conference on Spatial Cognition (ICSC 2021). The conference will be devoted to “Cognition and Action in a Plurality of Spaces” and will take place on September 13-17, 2021. Depending on the course of the pandemic, the conference will be either a hybrid or an online conference. In case of a hybrid conference, it will take place as an on-site conference in Rome and at the same time as a fully digital, interactive conference with access to all scientific sessions.
Topics:
In order to foster interdisciplinary discussion and spread new, innovative research on spatial cognition, space-related contributions from all sub-disciplines of cognitive science (cognitive psychology and neuropsychology, neuroscience, computational approaches, linguistics, philosophy of mind, etc.) will be considered. ICSC 2021 will be devoted (but not limited) to multidisciplinary researches on cognition and action concerning:
· physical, virtual, and hybrid spaces
· perceptual, imaginary, and conceptual spaces
· unisensory and multisensory spaces
· life-space and representations of space
· spatial and non-spatial representations of space
· bodily, peripersonal, and extrapersonal space
· proximal and distal space
· urban, rural, and natural spaces
· terrestrial and extra-terrestrial spaces
· subjective, intersubjective, and collective representations of space
· egocentric and allocentric representations of space
· culture-specific representations of space
· space in music, art, and architecture
· space in human-robot cooperation and human-robot interaction
· temporal spaces and time-space relationships
Deadlines:
· Symposium proposals (General abstracts with authors and titles of single contributions): January 31, 2021
· Abstracts of talks, posters, and single contributions to symposia: January 31, 2021
Conference proceedings:
The conference proceedings will be published in Cognitive Processing – International Quarterly of Cognitive Science (www.springer.com/10339).
Presidential Board:
Tiziana Catarci, Fabrizio Doricchi, Thomas Hünefeldt, Marta Olivetti Belardinelli, Antonino Raffone.
June CogNav webinar: Ana Basiri
Next CogNav RIN webinar coming soon! Ana Basiri from the University of Glasgow.
Active Transport: Navigation Services for non-drivers
This talk will look at the challenges of using navigation services, that have been initially designed for in-car use, for pedestrians and wheelchair users. Active travel and non-drivers navigation services still need some customisations to accommodate the needs of other user groups, including pedestrians or wheelchair users. Non-drivers’ movements are not limited by the directed networks of streets and roads, can continue inside the buildings, while limited to a much slower speed, and more vulnerable to the bad weather or pavement surface conditions. These differences are not completely addressed in current routing and navigation services and as a result walking, cycling, or wheelchair pathfinding and routing still need further adjustments. This talk will review the challenges, provide some examples and solutions to address the challenges, and showcase some of the implementations of the proposed solutions.
Bio:
Ana Basiri is a Professor in Geospatial Data Science and a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Ana is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Navigation and she works on developing (theoretical and applied) solutions that consider gaps, unavailability, and biases in data as a useful source of data to make inferences about the underlying reasons that caused missingness or biases. Her research is funded by UK Research and Innovation, European Research Council, and Royal Society allowing her to build and lead a team of an interdisciplinary team and collaborates with world-leading academic and industrial partners, including Ordnance Survey GB, Uber, Alan Turing Institute. Ana has received several awards and prizes, including Women Role Model in Science by Alexander Humboldt and European Commission Marie Curie Alumni.
May CogNav webinar - Tim Fendley
Next CogNav RIN webinar coming soon! Tim Fendley from Applied Wayfinding, hosted by Colette Jeffrey. Register here: https://rin.org.uk/events/EventDe
Bioinspired guidance, navigation and control mini-symposium
EVENT SCHEDULE
09.00-09.15: Introduction to the Annual Bioengineering Lecture
09.15-10.15:Visual guidance of flight in bees and birds and applications to Aircraft Guidance, Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, University of Queensland
10.15-10.30: Vote of thanks and break, Professor Holger Krapp, Imperial College London
10.30-11.00: Spatial AI for Mobile Robots, Dr Stefan Leutenegger, Imperial College London and The Technical University of Munich
11.00-11.30: Egocentric and allocentric heading representation in the monarch butterfly compass, Dr Basil el Jundi, University of Wuerzburg
11.30-11.40: Q&A/Break, Dr Huai-Ti Lin, Imperial College London
11.40-12.10: Individual and collective sensing in locust swarms, Dr Einat Couzin-Fuchs, University of Konstanz
12.10-12:40: Embodied control of virtual humanoid and animal bodies, Dr Josh Merel, Google Deepmind
12.40-12.50: Q&A/Break, Dr Huai-Ti Lin, Imperial College London
12.50-13.20: Panel discussion on Bioinspired GNC: Smart moves and moving smartly, Dr Huai-Ti Lin, Imperial College London
13.20-13.30: Closing remarks, Professor Simon Schultz, Imperial College London
April webinar - Nora Newcombe
We're delighted to announce our forthcoming CogNav seminar series, which will run on the last Thursday of each month at 7pm UK time. The first one, on April 29, will feature Nora Newcombe: The Development of Navigation - all welcome! https://rin.org.uk/events/EventDe
ANFA 2020: Sensing spaces, perceiving place
ANFA 2020: SENSING SPACES, PERCEIVING PLACE
San Diego, California, U.S.A.
September 17th - 19th
CALL FOR PRESENTERS:
Building on the tradition established at the ANFA 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 Conferences, ANFA 2020 will again provide a forum for architects, designers, environmental psychologists, cognitive scientists, biophysicists, and neuroscientists to focus on empirical research that enhances our understanding of human responses to the built environment. The conference seeks submissions representing studies on educational, justice-correctional, workplace and healthcare facilities, and encourages examples of how behavioral outcomes in one building type may apply to another. All presentations are to draw conclusions from their findings as to enable a translation from science to architectural design.
Conference Language: English
Abstracts will be accepted until February 28, 2020
Notification of Acceptance or Rejection: April 22, 2020
Spatial Cognition 2020
Spatial Cognition is concerned with the acquisition, development, representation, organization, and use of knowledge about spatial objects in real, virtual or hybrid environments and processed by human or artificial agents.
Spatial Cognition includes research from different fields insofar as they are concerned with cognitive agents and space, such as cognitive and developmental psychology, linguistics, computer science, geography, cartography, philosophy, neuroscience, and education. Research issues in the field range from the investigation of human spatial cognition to mobile robot navigation, including topics such as wayfinding, spatial planning, spatial learning, internal and external representations of space, and communication of spatial information.
SC 2020 will bring together researchers working on spatial cognition from all of these perspectives.
The conference is single-track, and the final program will be the result of a selective review process. The program will include oral and poster presentations of refereed papers, and keynote talks.
Festival of Place
For one day only, Tobacco Dock will be transformed into a HQ for makers of place, bringing together developers, investors, cities, government, planners, scientists, academics and designers to unlock how to make places that thrive
iNav 2020 Interdisciplinary Navigation Conference
How does the brain know where it is, where it is going, and how to get from one place to the other?
We are pleased to announce the third iNAV Symposium, to be held in June 2020 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, in the Dolomites region of Italy. The meeting aims to bring together a diverse group of scientists from backgrounds such as systems neuroscience, human cognitive (neuro)science, animal behavior, theoretical neurobiology and robotics. The format for the meeting will be similar to our previous meetings where there will be about 60 speakers giving 20-min presentations. There will be opportunities for everyone attending to either present a talk, a data-blitz or a poster. Students and post-docs are warmly invited.
We do hope you will be able to join us for what promises to be another stimulating and memorable scientific exchange.
Central London Walking Network by London Living Streets & Urban Design Group
London Living Streets, the Urban Design Group and TFL are organising a half-day conference on a Central London Walking Network, starting at 1.15pm on 28 November. We have a stellar line-up of speakers including London's walking and cycling commissioner, Will Norman; cabinet leads from City of London, Westminster, Islington and Camden councils; world-leading neuroscientist Professor Kate Jeffery; John Dales from Urban Movement and more.
INC2019 International Navigation Conference
We are pleased to announce that the Royal Institute of Navigation International Navigation Conference 2019 will be held in the prestigious Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), Edinburgh, Scotland.
Conference programme Click here to see more.
Registration here: https://rin.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1135239
Urban Design Group: What Neuroscience can tell us about our sense of place, and sense of direction
The Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture with Professor Kate Jeffery
What Neuroscience can tell us about our sense of place, and sense of direction
Kevin Lynch is known for his pioneering work on mental mapping, and the perception of the built environment, including the seminal publication The Image of the City where he wrote about paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks.
We are delighted to announce that this year’s lecture will be given by the neuroscientist Professor Kate Jeffery, one of the world’s foremost experts on how mammals navigate, and develop their own mental maps. Her research shows how our brains enable our sense of place and sense of direction, and the sorts of environments that get us confused or lost.
http://www.udg.org.uk/events/london-and-south-east/kevin-lynch-memorial-lecture
