This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Simulation and Adaptive Behavior, SAB 2010, held in Paris and Clos Lucé, France, in August 2010. The articles cover all main areas in animat research, including perception and motor control, action selection, motivation and emotion, internal models and representation, collective behavior, language evolution, evolution and learning. The authors focus on well-defined models, computer simulations or robotic models, that help to characterize and compare various organizational principles, architectures, and adaptation processes capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real animals or synthetic agents, the animats.

From Animals to Animats 4 brings together the latest research at the frontier of an exciting new approach to understanding intelligence.

The Animals to Animats Conference brings together researchers fromethology, psychology, ecology, artificial intelligence, artificiallife, robotics, engineering, and related fields to furtherunderstanding of the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allownatural and synthetic agents (animats) to adapt and survive inuncertain environments The Animals to Animats Conference brings together researchers from ethology, psychology, ecology, artificial intelligence, artificial life, robotics, engineering, and related fields to further understanding of the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow natural and synthetic agents (animats) to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. The work presented focuses on well-defined models--robotic, computer-simulation, and mathematical--that help to characterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures underlying adaptive behavior in both natural animals and animats.

August 8-12, 1994, Brighton, England From Animals to Animats 3 brings together research intended to advance the fron tier of an exciting new approach to understanding intelligence. The contributors represent a broad range of interests from artificial intelligence and robotics to ethology and the neurosciences. Unifying these approaches is the notion of "animat" -- an artificial animal, either simulated by a computer or embodied in a robot, which must survive and adapt in progressively more challenging environments. The 58 contributions focus particularly on well-defined models, computer simulations, and built robots in order to help characterize and compare various principles and architectures capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real or artificial animals. Topics include: - Individual and collective behavior. - Neural correlates of behavior. - Perception and motor control. - Motivation and emotion. - Action selection and behavioral sequences. - Ontogeny, learning, and evolution. - Internal world models and cognitive processes. - Applied adaptive behavior. - Autonomous robots. - Heirarchical and parallel organizations. - Emergent structures and behaviors. - Problem solving and planning. - Goal-directed behavior. - Neural networks and evolutionary computation. - Characterization of environments. A Bradford Book

More than sixty contributions in From Animals to Animats 2 byresearchers in ethology, ecology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and related fieldsinvestigate behaviors and the underlying mechanisms that allow animals and, potentially, robots toadapt and survive in uncertain environments. Jean-Arcady Meyer is Director of Research, CNRS, Paris.Herbert L. Roitblat is Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Stewart W.Wilson is a scientist at The Rowland Institute for Science, Cambridge,Massachusetts. Topics covered: The Animat Approach to Adaptive Behavior,Perception and Motor Control, Action Selection and Behavioral Sequences, Cognitive Maps and InternalWorld Models, Learning, Evolution, Collective Behavior.

The Animals to Animats Conference brings together researchers from ethology,psychology, ecology, artificial intelligence, artificial life, robotics, engineering, and relatedfields to further understanding of the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow natural andsynthetic agents (animats) to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. The work presentedfocuses on well-defined models--robotic, computer-simulation, and mathematical--that help tocharacterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures underlying adaptivebehavior in both natural animals and animats.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour, SAB 2012, held in Odense, Denmark, in August 2012. The 22 full papers as well as 22 poster papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 66 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: animat approach and methodology; perception and motor control; evolution; learning and adaptation, and collective and social behaviour.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, SAB 2008, held in Osaka, Japan in July 2008. The 30 revised full papers and 21 revised poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 110 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on the animat approach to adaptive behaviour, evolution, navigation and internal world models, perception and control, learning and adaptation, cognition, emotion and behaviour, collective and social behaviours, adaptive behaviour in language and communication, and applied adaptive behaviour.

This exciting study explores the novel insight, based on well-established ethological principles, that animals, humans, and autonomous robots can all be analyzed as multi-task autonomous control systems.

Rodent behavioral testing has been used to study brain functions since the 1890s and has become a gold-standard model in modern neuroscience. Up to the 1950s, most behavioral tests on laboratory rodent models were based on punishments and rewards. Both approaches can lead to a certain degree of animal pain or suffering. Punishments involved the employment of painful stimuli, typically electric shocks. Passive avoidance and fear conditioning tests, among the most widely used behavioral paradigms used to evaluate learning and memory in rodents, can be performed using only a single brief shock. Other tests, such as the active avoidance, might require up to tens or hundreds of shocks, strongly challenging the psychological welfare of the model animals. On the other hand, tests based on rewards, which apparently may seem more ethical, actually still induce suffering in the animals, as food rewards are almost always associated with a food restriction protocol, in order to motivate food-seeking behavior. Rodents are starved for days before starting the test and kept under food restriction for the whole duration of the test. The distress during the testing session is only a minimal part compared to the stress lived outside of the testing session, which is prolonged and continuous. Analogously, liquid rewards commonly rely on a previous water restriction protocol to use thirst as motivation. Animal stress is not only an ethical issue per se, but also an important factor potentially impacting on the reliability and reproducibility of experimental results.