USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Theory of Mind Workshop

October 12-14, 2007 Marina del Rey, CA USA

Overview

This workshop seeks to bring researchers  from several relevant disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, neural science, linguistics and computer science to discuss a range of topics including alternative theories about how people model others, the roles those models play in human social interaction as well as how these theories can be computational modeled. 

Because of the central role theory of mind plays in human social interaction, there has been a growing interest in computationally modeling of theory of mind. These computational models are, in particular, playing a role in improving human-computer, and human-robot, interaction. The Institute of Creative Technology is a leader in research in such applications, especially  the design of virtual humans that can interact with people much like people interact with each other. In addition, computational models and virtual humans are increasingly being used as methodological tools in the psychological study of human behavior. 

By bringing together the researchers from the many fields studying theory of mind, we seek a cross-fertilization of ideas and the opening up of new research approaches. The following topics could be addressed at the workshop.

1. What is the role of theory of mind in human social interaction? What are the theoretical and empirical foundations that we can draw from psychology and philosophy on the representations and processes that underlie this human capacity. 
2. What should computational models of ToM look like for agent-based models of social interaction and communication?  What can we use these models for? Which applications would benefit from richer models? In particular we could consider virtual humans that can interact with humans or multi-agent simulation used for computational social science. What do these applications need?
3. What about the theory of mind in relation to communication?  What effect does this framework have on how we define and implement conversational systems? How do we define communicative acts within the more general framework of social, interpersonal action?

Preliminary Program

Friday October 12

9:00 Opening remarks, Andrew Gordon (ICT) and Stacy Marsella (ISI)

9:30 Antonio Damasio (USC Brain and Creativity Institute) “Reflections on the biology of the self and of the perceived other”.

10:00 Open discussion

10:30 Morning break

11:00 Marco Iacoboni (UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute) “Pervasive mirroring: Single unit recordings of human mirror neurons in medial frontal cortex” (background reading)

11:30 Alvin Goldman (Rutgers Philosophy) “Mirroring, Mindreading, and Simulation” (background reading).

12:00 Open discussion

12:30 Lunch (provided by ICT)

1:30 Robert Gordon (U. Missouri St. Louis) “Seeing something as an intentional agent requires simulation” (background reading, alternate link)

2:00 Stephen Read (USC Psychology) “Narrative structures and coherence seeking in understanding other minds." (background reading one, and two)

2:30 Open discussion

3:00 Afternoon break

3:30 Jon Gratch (ICT) "Toward virtual humans" (background reading one, and two).

4:00 Virtual Humans Demonstration, ICT VR Theater

4:30 Open discussion

5:00 Free time before dinner

6:30 Workshop dinner at Joe's in Venice (1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd, 310-399-5811). Small group break-out discussions, with emphasis on collaboration.

Saturday, October 13

9:00 Day two opening remarks, Andrew Gordon (ICT) and Stacy Marsella (ISI)

9:30 Jerry Hobbs (USC ISI) “Towards a Commonsense Theory of Knowledge Management”

10:00 Open discussion

10:30 Morning break

11:00 David Pynadath (USC ISI) “PsychSim: A decision-theoretic implementation of Theory of Mind”

11:30 Cristiano Castelfranchi (CNR Italy), “Why Does Human Affective Interaction Require ToM? How to 'Integrate' Feeling/Body and High Level Cognition in Emotions?”

12:00 Open discussion

12:30 Lunch (provided by ICT)

1:30 Dirk Heylen (U. Twente) “Mind and Body Language”

2:00 Janice Wiebe (U. Pittsburgh) “Manual Subjectivity Annotation”

2:30 Open discussion

3:00 Afternoon break

3:30 Eric Mueller (IBM Research) “When Mindreading is Harmful to Interaction: An Antecedent-Action-Consequence Framework for Improving Interpersonal Relationships”

4:00 Yet to be determined.

4:30 Open discussion

5:00 End of day two: Free evening for ad hoc dinner groups, or enjoy an evening in Los Angeles on your own.

Sunday, October 14

9:00 Working session 1: Setting a science and engineering research agenda

10:30 Morning break

11:00 Working session 2: Building an interdisciplinary research community

12:30 End of day three: Go home!