Author: Philipp Wicke

Lecturer: Prof. John Spencer
Fields: psychology, cognitive science, developmental science, neuroscience

Content

I will present a line of work exploring the neural dynamics underlying visual working memory — a core cognitive system used to detect changes in the world, keeping cognition anchored to the visual surrounds. I will first introduce the key concepts of Dynamic Field Theory. Next, I will present our theory of visual working memory. Subsequent lectures will show how we have tested and extended this theory in the areas of adult cognition and human development, including how we have embedded the theory in larger cognitive architectures. I will also discuss how we have tested the neural dynamic details of the theory using fMRI.

Literature

• Buss, A.T., Magnotta, V., Penny, W., Schöner, G., Huppert, T. & Spencer, J.P. (2021). How do neural processes give rise to cognition? Simultaneously predicting brain and behavior with a dynamic model of visual working memory. Psychological Review, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000264.
• Spencer, J. P. (2020). The development of working memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, doi/10.1177/0963721420959835.
• Delgado Reyes, L.M., Wijeakumar, S., Magnotta, V.A., Forbes, S.H. & Spencer, J.P. (2020). The functional brain networks that underlie visual working memory in the first two years of life. NeuroImage, 219, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116971.
• Perone, S. & Spencer, J.P. (2013). Autonomous visual exploration creates developmental change in familiarity and novelty seeking behaviors. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 648.
• Perone, S. & Spencer, J.P. (2013). Autonomy in action: Linking the act of looking to memory formation in infancy via dynamic neural fields. Cognitive Science, 37, 1-60.
• Perone, S., Simmering, V.R. & Spencer, J.P. (2011). Stronger neural dynamics capture changes in infants’ visual short-term memory capacity over development. Developmental Science, 14, 1379-1392.
• Johnson, J.S., Spencer, J.P., & Schöner, G. (2009). A layered neural architecture for the consolidation, maintenance, and updating of representations in visual working memory. Brain Research, 1299, 17-32.
• Johnson, J.S., Spencer, J.P., Luck, S.J., & Schöner, G. (2009). A dynamic neural field model of visual working memory and change detection. Psychological Science, 20, 568-577.

Lecturer

John P. Spencer is a Professor of Psychology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. Prior to arriving in the UK, he was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa and served as the founding Director of the Delta Center (Development and Learning from Theory to Application). He received a Sc.B. with Honors from Brown University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Indiana University in 1998. He is the recipient of the Irving J. Saltzman and the J.R. Kantor Graduate Awards from Indiana University, the 2003 Early Research Contributions Award from the Society for Research in Child Development, and the 2006 Robert L. Fantz Memorial Award from the American Psychological Foundation. His research examines the development of visuo-spatial cognition, word learning, working memory, attention, and executive function with an emphasis on dynamical systems and dynamic field models of cognition and action. He has had continuous funding from the US National Institutes of Health and the US National Science Foundation since 2001 and has been a fellow of the American Psychological Association since 2007. He is currently leading a new initiative on infant brain health in India funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Affiliation: University of East Anglia
Homepage: https://ddlabs.uea.ac.uk/

Lecturer: Sven Walter
Fields: Philosophy

UNFORTUNATELY, BC4 HAD TO BE CANCELLED.

Content

The four lectures will cover the changes that the concept of cognition seems to have undergone since the 1960, starting with the computer model of the mind, then covering connectionism and dynamicism and finally discussing modern approaches that have been suggested under such headings as embodiment, enactivism, extended mind etc.

Lecturer

Sven Walter studied philosophy at Bonn and Ohio State University. He received his PhD in 2005, since 2007 he is professor for philosophy of mind and cognition.

Affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University

Lecturer: Gottfried Vosgerau
Fields: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Cognition

Content

Although Cognitive Science started as an interdisciplinary approach to the mind based on the concept of mental representations, mental representations are much debated in the current literature. In this course, we will first look at arguments why mental representations are still necessary for truly causal explanations of behavior. We will also discuss what mental representations are not and which shortcomings of classical definitions should be abandoned. One critical issue concerns the question of how mental representations come into place and how they acquire their content. We will discuss ideas that propose specific transitions from action control to simple mental representations to concepts.

Literature

• Egan, F. (2020): “A Deflationary Account of Mental Representation”, in J. Smortchkova, K. Dołęga, and T. Schlicht (eds.): What are Mental Representations?, Oxford University Press, 26–54.
• Gentsch, A.; Weber, A.; Synofzik, M.; Vosgerau, G. & Schütz-Bosbach, S. (2016): „Towards a common framework of grounded action cognition: Relating motor control perception and cognition“, Cognition 146, 81-89.
• Newen, A. & Vosgerau, G. (2020): “Situated Mental Representations: Why we need mental representations and how we should understand them”, in J. Smortchkova, K. Dołęga, and T. Schlicht (eds.): What are Mental Representations?, Oxford University Press, 178–212.
• Ramsey, W. M. 2017. Must Cognition Be Representational? Synthese 194 (11): 4197–4214.
• Vosgerau, G., Seuchter, T., Petersen, W., (2015), “Analyzing Concepts in Action-Frames”, in: T. Gamerschlag, R. Osswald, W. Petersen (eds.): Meaning, Frames, and Conceptual Representation, Studies in Language and Cognition. Düsseldorf University Press, Düsseldorf; S.293-310.
• Weber, A. & Vosgerau, G. (2012), „Grounding Action Representations“, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3, 53-69.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Gottfried Vosgerau received his PhD in Philosophy in 2007 with a dissertation on mental representation. He is professor for Philosophy of Mind and Cognition at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf since 2019. His main research interests include mental representations, other mental entities and their role in the explanation of behavior, the relation between thought and language, and the philosophical implications of mental disorders.

Affiliation: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Homepage: https://www.philosophie.hhu.de/personal/philosophie-vi-philosophie-des-geistes-und-der-kognition

Lecturer: Auke J. Ijspeert
Fields: Robotics, Computational neuroscience

Content

The ability to efficiently move in complex environments is a fundamental property both for animals and for robots, and the problem of locomotion and movement control is an area in which neuroscience, biomechanics, and robotics can fruitfully interact. In this talk, I will present how biorobots and numerical models can be used to explore the interplay of the four main components underlying animal locomotion, namely central pattern generators (CPGs), reflexes, descending modulation, and the musculoskeletal system. Going from lamprey to human locomotion, I will present a series of models that tend to show that the respective roles of these components have changed during evolution with a dominant role of CPGs in lamprey and salamander locomotion, and a more important role for sensory feedback and descending modulation in human locomotion. Furthermore, the models suggest that there is an interesting redundancy between sensory feedback loops and CPGs that provide strong robustness against neural lesions. If time allows, I will also present a project showing how robotics can provide scientific tools for paleontology.

Literature

• Ijspeert, A. J. (2014). Biorobotics: Using robots to emulate and investigate agile locomotion. Science, 346(6206), 196–203. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1254486
• Ryczko, D., Simon, A., & Ijspeert, A. J. (2020). Walking with Salamanders: From Molecules to Biorobotics. Trends in Neurosciences, 43(11), 916–930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2020.08.006
• Thandiackal, R., Melo, K., Paez, L., Herault, J., Kano, T., Akiyama, K., Boyer, F., Ryczko, D., Ishiguro, A., & Ijspeert, A. J. (2021). Emergence of robust self-organized undulatory swimming based on local hydrodynamic force sensing. Science Robotics, 6(57), eabf6354. https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abf6354

Lecturer

Auke Ijspeert is a professor at EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland), IEEE Fellow, and head of the Biorobotics Laboratory (https://www.epfl.ch/labs/biorob). He has a B.Sc./M.Sc. in physics from the EPFL (1995), and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh (1999). His research interests are at the intersection between robotics and computational neuroscience. He is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to gain a better understanding of animal locomotion and movement control, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and locomotion controllers (see for instance Ijspeert et al, Science, Vol. 315, 2007 and Ijspeert, Science Vol. 346, 2014). He is also interested in assisting persons with limited mobility using exoskeletons and assistive furniture. With his colleagues, he has received paper awards at ICRA2002, CLAWAR2005, IEEE Humanoids 2007, IEEE ROMAN 2014, CLAWAR 2015, and CLAWAR 2019. He is associate editor for the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics and the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. He is also a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine.

Affiliation: EPFL
Homepage: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/biorob/people/ijspeert/

Lecturer: Martin Takac
Fields: Artificial Intelligence/Cognitive Science

Content

How do we know that a system – living or artificial – understands something? If it makes sense of its experience and ascribes it meaning – how is this meaning represented within the system? In my course I will start with basic overview of semantic theories and grounded cognition. I will cover grounding of abstract concepts and language syntax, developmental approach to grounding meaning in AI and also analyze modern large-scale language models and semantics in deep neural networks.

Literature

• Barsalou, L.W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617-645.
• Knott, A. & Takac, M. (2021). Roles for Event Representations in Sensorimotor Experience, Memory Formation, and Language Processing. Topics in Cognitive Science 13(1). 187-205.
• Borghi A.M., Barca L., Binkofski F., Tummolini L. (2018) Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20170121
• Smith, L. & Gasser, M. (2005). The Development of Embodied Cognition: Six Lessons from Babies. Artificial Life. Vol. 11, Issues 1-2, pp. 13 – 30.
• Zaadnoordijk, L., Besold, T.R. & Cusack, R. (2022). Lessons from infant learning for unsupervised machine learning. Nature Machine Intelligence 4, 510–520.
• Roy, N. et al (2021): From Machine Learning to Robotics: Challenges and
• Opportunities for Embodied Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2110.15245

Lecturer

Martin Takac received his PhD in artificial intelligence from Comenius University in Bratislava where he currently works as associate professor in cognitive science. His research specializes on computational modelling of sense-making and meaning construction. He is also a co-creator of cognitive architecture of BabyX – a virtual infant.

Affiliation: Comenius University in Bratislava
Homepage: http://cogsci.fmph.uniba.sk/~takac/

Lecturer: Raoul Bongers
Fields: Human Movement Sciences

Content

The lectures will explain fundamental issues in motor control, motor coordination and motor learning from an Action-perception perspective. To this end we employ a joint perspective from Ecological Psychology and a Dynamical Systems approach to movement coordination. Thee are all systems-perspectives. I will focus on four themes:
– The motor system is organised in synergies
– Information-movement couplings control actions
– Learning new synergies
– Embodying hand prostheses

Literature

• Kristoffersen, M. B., Franzke, A. W., Sluis, C. K. van der, Murgia, A. & Bongers, R. M. Serious gaming to generate separated and consistent EMG patterns in pattern-recognition prosthesis control. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control 62, 102140 (2020).
• Pacheco MM, Lafe CW and Newell KM (2019) Search Strategies in the Perceptual-Motor Workspace and the Acquisition of Coordination, Control, and Skill. Front. Psychol. 10:1874. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01874
• Profeta, V. L. S. & Turvey, M. T. Bernstein’s levels of movement construction_ A contemporary perspective. HUMAN MOVEMENT SCIENCE 57, 111–133 (2017).
• Richardson, M.J., Shockley, K., Fajen, B.R., Riley, M.A., Turvey, M.T., 2008. Ecological psychology: six principles for an embodied–embedded approach to behavior. In: Calvo, P., Gomila, A.B.T.-H., of, C.S. (Eds.), Perspectives on Cognitive Science. Elsevier, San Diego, pp. 159–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-046616-3.00009-8.
• Zhao, H. & Warren, W. H. On-line and model-based approaches to the visual control of action. Vision Research 110, 190–202 (2015).

Lecturer

Dr. Bongers received his PhD from the Radboud University Nijmegen in the area of developmental psychology. For 20 years he works now at the Department of Human Movement Sciences of the University Medical Center Groningen. His research focuses on motor coordination and motor learning from an action-perception perspective. He is interested in fundamental issues in motor learning, in particular how people learn to coordinate their degrees of freedom in new synergies. He applies these insight to develop rehabilitation strategies in upper limb prosthesis for more than 15 years and recently also to stroke rehabilitation.

Affiliation: Dept of Human Movement Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
Homepage: https://www.rug.nl/staff/r.m.bongers/

Lecturer: Markus F. Peschl
Fields: knowledge creation, innovation, creativity, enactive cognition

Content

The guiding question for this course will be: How do novel knowledge and innovation, or generally speaking, novelty come into the world?
More specifically, we will take a closer look at foundations and perspectives of creativity, knowledge creation, and innovation. We propose to understand them as socio-epistemic processes that unfold in interaction between a (group of) cognitive system(s) and its (material) environment leading to the creation of artifacts. Moreover, we will discuss what it means to bring forth novel and sustainable knowledge/innovations in a future-oriented manner both on an individual and collective/organizational level as well as what are enabling (environmental) factors and conditions supporting such processes („Enabling Spaces“).

In discussing and questioning classic approaches to creativity and innovation, we will follow concepts that are inspired by the enactivist approach to cognition, such as De Jaegher’s et al. (2007, 2021) participatory sense-making or engaged epistemology, as well as Malafouris’ (2013) Material Engagement Theory. They suggest that, in a creative process, a (group of) cognitive/creative agent(s) does not primarily pursue a hylomorphic activity of imposing their own preconceived ideas/knowledge on the world/matter, but engage in a process of “creative thinging“ (Malafouris 2014). In other words, this means that by actively engaging with the world, making sense of it, and (co-)creating „things“/artifacts (→ „thinging“), one taps into not yet realized unfolding (future) potentials or „learns from the future as it emerges“ (Scharmer 2016); the becoming of reality turns into a source for novelty/novel knowledge.
This turns the classic understanding of creativity and knowledge creation on its head, as „creative agency“ is—at least in part—shifted from the creator’s mind to the environment and to interacting/engaging with the world.
This entails that (epistemic) control has to be given up (or at least reduced) in favor of openness to the affordances and potentials of a world in becoming. Creative activities have to be conceived as processes of co-becoming, undergoing, and correspondence with the world (e.g., Ingold 2013, 2014). We will discuss theoretical issues as well as (practical) consequences of such a perspective in terms of necessary alternative cognitive skills, mindsets/attitudes, and enablers, such as developing a sense for potentials, openness, „epistemic humility“, or enabling environmental (infra-)structures, etc.

Literature

• De Jaegher, H. and E. Di Paolo (2007). Participatory sense-making. An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6(4), 485–507.
• De Jaegher, H. (2021). Loving and knowing: reflections for an engaged epistemology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 20(5), 847–870.
• Ingold, T. (2013). Making. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
• Ingold, T. (2014). The creativity of undergoing. Pragmatics & Cognition 22(1), 124–139.
• Ingold, T. (2022). Creation beyond creativity. In T. Ingold (Ed.), Imagining for real. Essays on creation, attention and correspondence, pp. 15–28. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
• Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind. A theory of material engagement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Malafouris, L. (2014). Creative thinging: The feeling of and for clay. Pragmatics & Cognition 22(1), 140–158.
• Peschl, M.F. (2019). Design and innovation as co‐creating and co‐becoming with the future. Design Management Journal 14(1), 4–14.
• Peschl, M.F. (2020). Theory U: From potentials and co-becoming to bringing forth emergent innovation and shaping a thriving future. On what it means to \”learn from the future as it emerges\”. In O. Gunnlaugson and W. Brendel (Eds.), Advances in Presencing, pp. 65–112. Vancouver: Trifoss Business Press.
• Scharmer, C.O. (2016). Theory U. Leading from the future as it emerges. The social technology of presencing (second ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Lecturer

Markus F. Peschl (*1965) is professor of cognitive science and philosophy of science at the University of Vienna, Dept. of Philosophy. His areas of research and expertise include innovation and alternative approaches to creativity, cognitive science (4E/enactive cognition), organizational theory and strategy, design, and spaces for knowledge- and innovation work (Enabling Spaces). He is one of the founders of the inter-faculty interdisciplinary Vienna Cognitive Science Hub and the head of the International Middle European Joint Masters Program in Cognitive Science (MEi:CogSci) and the Extension Curriculum on Innovation & Knowledge Creation. Markus is head of the OCKO – Organizing Cognition in Knowing Organizations Research Group. He spent several years at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy department) and at the University of Sussex for post-doctoral research. Furthermore, he studied philosophy in France. He is co-founder and CSO of the theLivingCore Innovation and Knowledge Architects and holds several guest professorships at European Universities.

Affiliation: University of Vienna | Dept. of Philosophy & Vienna Cognitive Science Hub
Homepage: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/franz-markus.peschl/

Lecturer: Annekatrin Vetter, Katharina Krämer, and Sophia Reul
Fields: Psychology, Psychotherapy

Content

This course is intended for all participants, who are curious about perceiving different aspects of their mind, their body, things that surround us, and dreams. During the course we will focus on the broad field of self-experience. We are working with techniques from the fields of self-awareness, mindfulness, body perception, biography reflection, interpersonal and intrapersonal communication and different schools of psychotherapy.

Every session will have a different theme. Sessions 1 will be about self-experience of the mind, session 3 will be about self-experience of the body, and session 4 will be about self-experience and things. Session 2 will be about experiencing dreams. During this session we will use a special technique called “social dreaming”. For this session there will be a short introduction on the evening before the session. You are welcome to join us for just one session or to join us for up to four sessions and experience exercises with different foci. Previous knowledge is not necessary for this course, just bring an open and curious mind.

Lecturer

Annekatrin Vetter is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. She is doing analytic and psychotherapeutic outpatient treatment in private practice in Cologne. Moreover, she works as a lecturer for clinical psychology at the Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln and as a trainer for coaches. Besides that, she currently works on a research project about treatment integrity in Mentalization based group therapy.

Prof. Dr. Katharina Krämer is a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She works as a professor for psychology at the Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln, Germany, and as a psychotherapist in private practice. In 2014, Katharina Krämer received her doctoral degree from the University of Cologne, Germany, on a thesis investigating the perception of dynamic nonverbal cues in cross-cultural psychology and high-functioning autism. She works with patients with different mental disorders, focusing on adult patients with autism. Her research interests include the application of Mentalization-Based Group-Therapy with patients with autism and the vocational integration of patients with autism.

Affiliation: Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln, University of Applied Sciences
Homepage: https://www.rfh-koeln.de/studium/studiengaenge/wirtschaft-recht/wirtschaftspsychologie/dozenteninnen/katharina_kraemer/index_ger.html

Dr. Sophia Reul is a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She works as a clinical psychologist at a psychiatric hospital Evangelisches Krankenhaus Bergisch Gladbach, Germany), and as a psychotherapist in private practice. She works with patients with different mental disorders. In 2020, Sophia Reul received her doctoral degree from the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany, on a thesis investigating the efficiency of neuropsychological diagnostic for early neurodegenerative diseases. Her research interests include the application of Mentalization-Based Group-Therapy with patients with autism.

Affiliation: Evangelisches Krankenhaus Bergisch Gladbach

Lecturer: Andreas Kalckert
Fields: Cognitive neuroscience; Experimental psychology

Content

In this course I will provide an overview of the cognitive, perceptual, and neural mechanisms underpinning bodily self-awareness. Following Gallagher’s distinction of ownership vs. agency and using the rubber hand illusion as an experimental model, I will discuss how sensory and motor processes give rise the experience of the own body.
The course consists of two talks introducing the experimental and theoretical findings, followed by a hands-on session with the rubber hand illusion demonstrating some of the practical caveats when performing this experiment.

Literature

• Ehrsson HH. Multisensory processes in body ownership. In: Sathian K, Ramachandran VS, eds. Multisensory Perception: From Laboratory to Clinic. Academic Press: Elsevier; 2020:179-200.
• Graziano, M. S. A., & Botvinick, M. (2002). How the brain represents the body: insights from neurophysiology and psychology (pp. 136–157). In: Common Mechanisms in Perception and Action: Attention and Performance XIX. Eds. W. Prinz and B. Hommel. Oxford University Press, Oxford England
• Kalckert, A. (2017) I am moving my hand – Ownership, Agency, and the body. in “Sensation of movement”. Ed. Thor Gruenbaum and Mark Schram Christensen. Psychology Press: Current Issues in Consciousness Research
• Kalckert, A. & Ehrsson, H.H. (2012). Moving a rubber hand that feels like your own: a dissociation of ownership and agency. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Volume 6, Article 40

Lecturer

Dr. Andreas Kalckert received his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden (Brain, Body, and Self Lab, Department of Neuroscience). After his Ph.D. he worked as a lecturer in psychology at the University of Reading Malaysia. He works now as a Senior lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy at the University of Skövde (Sweden). In his research, he specializes in the cognitive and perceptual processes of bodily self-awareness. His particular interests lies in the interaction of the Sense of Ownership and Sense of agency in body illusion paradigms such as the rubber hand illusion.

Affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde (Sweden)
Homepage: https://www.his.se/en/research/systems-biology/cognitive-neuroscience-and-philosophy/

Lecturer: Herbert Jaeger
Fields: Interdisciplinary methods basics

Content

This is a crash course on dynamical systems, held at the Interdisciplinary College already several times – there is a demand! The presentation is meant to be introductory, understandable for a general natural / neural / cognitive science audience. Here is the planned schedule:

Session 1: Part I: Introduction: so many ways to classify models of dynamical systems! – Part II: A zoo of finite-state models: finite-state automata with and without input, deterministic and non-deterministic, probabilistic), hidden Markov models and partially observable Markov decision processes.

Session 2: Finite-state models continued: Cellular automata, dynamical Bayesian networks. Part III: A zoo of continuous state models: iterated function systems, ordinary differential equations, stochastic differential equations, delay differential equations, partial differential equations, (neural) field equations. Part IV: What is a state? Takens’ theorem.

Session 3: Part V: State-free models of temporal systems. The engineering view on “signals”. Describing sequential data by grammars. Chomsky hierarchy. Exponential and power-law long-range interactions. Part VI: qualitative theory of dynamical systems. Attractors, structural stability.

Session 4: Part VI continued: bifurcations. Phase transitions. Topological dynamics. Discussion: attractors and symbols. Part VII: non-autonomous dynamical systems. Basic definitions. Nonautonomous attractor concepts.

Literature

• Literature: The slides from the 2021 presentation https://www.ai.rug.nl/minds/uploads/IntroDynSys_IK_2021.pdf contain numerous references to (mostly introductory) materials, sorted by topic.

Lecturer

Herbert Jaeger studied mathematics and psychology at the University of Freiburg and obtained his PhD in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) at the University of Bielefeld. After a 5-year postdoctoral fellowship at the German National Research Center for Computer Science (Sankt Augustin, Germany) he headed the “Intelligent Dynamical Systems” group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems AIS (Sankt Augustin, Germany). From 2003 to 2019 he was Associate Professor for Computational Science at Jacobs University Bremen, and since 2019 he is Full Processor for Computing in Cognitive Materials at the University of Groningen. His current research revolves around formal theory-building for non-digital computing.

Affiliation: University of Groningen (NL)
Homepage: https://www.ai.rug.nl/minds/