In 1950, Alan Turing asked "Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's?" Today, over 70 years later, constructing a computer program that can learn like a child and that develops a human-like general intelligence and consciousness is still considered a grand, if not the ultimate, challenge for artificial intelligence (AI). An interdisciplinary community of scientists from AI, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Engineering, and Neuroscience are tackling this grand challenge. In the Developing Minds global lecture series we showcase the progress being made. It is organized by the Developmental AI Task Force of the IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. See also: IEEE Int. Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS).

Next Event

Thursday, December 12, 2024

9:00 am EST (Eastern Standard Time, US)

14:00 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time)

15:00 CET (Central European Time)

23:00 JST (Japan Standard Time)

Daniel Messinger

Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Florida, United States

"Does Interaction Drive Development?

Lessons from infant emotion, autism, and preschool language"

Abstract

A dynamic systems perspective suggests that developmental achievements are composed of a progression of real-time interactions. But evidence supporting this surmise is not common. Dr. Messinger employs machine learning of audio, video, and ultrawideband signals in naturalistic contexts to highlight the role of individual and interactive dynamics in constituting developmental outcomes. He will discuss a series of salient examples linking the emergence of interactive competencies with developmental outcomes. These include the emergence of interactive smiling and attachment, as well as the emergence of autism and preschool language competencies. Dr. Messinger will conclude with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of current empirical research linked to dynamic systems and developmental cascades perspectives.

Short Bio

Dr. Daniel Messinger is a professor and Director of the Child Division in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami where he is the Director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Program at the Institute for Data Science and Computing. He employs computational approaches to big behavioral data to understand the interactive origins of social, language, and emotional development. His research focuses on social and communicative development in typically developing children, children with hearing loss, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and children whose communicative development is affected by prenatal drug exposure and poverty.

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Upcoming Events

• 2024-12-12: Daniel Messinger, Dept. of Psychology, University of Miami, Florida, United States

Previous Events

• 2024-12-12: Daniel Messinger, "Does Interaction Drive Development? Lessons from infant emotion, autism, and preschool language". Video

• 2024-11-12: Justin N. Wood, "Radical empiricism: The origins of knowledge as a mini-evolution". Video

• 2024-04-18: Sabine Hunnius, "Early cognitive development: Five lessons from infant learning". Video

• 2024-01-24: Caroline Rowland, "What predicts how quickly children learn language?" Video

• 2023-11-30: Brenden Lake, "Addressing two classic debates in cognitive science with deep learning". Video

• 2023-06-28: Angelo Cangelosi, "Developmental Robotics for Language Learning, Trust and Theory of Mind". Video

• 2023-04-27: Karl Friston, "Active Inference and Artificial Curiosity". Video

• 2023-03-02: Masashi Sugiyama, "Theory and Algorithm towards Reliable Machine Learning". Video

• 2022-12-08: Karen E. Adolph, "Development of intelligent behavior: Lessons from Infants". Video

• 2022-11-17: Gary Marcus, "Towards a Proper Foundation for Robust Artificial Intelligence". Video

• 2022-07-28: Sergey Levine, UC Berkeley, "From Reinforcement Learning to Embodied Learning". Video

• 2022-06-01: Susan Goldin-Meadow, U. of Chicago, "The Mind Hidden in Our Hands". Video

• 2022-03-31 : Atsushi Iriki, Riken, "Self-in-the-world map evolved in the primate brain as a basis of civilized Homo sapiens". Video

• 2022-01-27: Josh Tenenbaum, MIT, "Reverse Engineering Human Cognitive Development: What do we start with, and how do we learn the rest?". Video

• 2021-11-11: Linda B. Smith, Indiana University, "Babies, bodies, brains and machines". Video  

• 2021-09-30: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA, "Developmental Artificial Intelligence: machines that learn like children and help children learn better".  Video

If you like our talks, also check out the keynote lectures from the 2022 ICDL conference!

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