The <Group for Research on Artificial Cognition> (GRACo) is an interdisciplinary group dedicated to the synthetic design of cognitive systems. The group is part of the Department of Computer Engineering and Industrial Automation (DCA/FEEC), at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

Main topics of research

  • Semiotic Processes
  • Meaning
  • Language
  • Comunication
  • Cognitive Adaptive Processes
  • Embodied and situated cognition

Focuses of research

  • fundamental constraints for the emergence of semiosis
  • differences between innate and learned sign systems
  • adaptive role of compositional languages
  • adaptive advantage of symbolic processes
  • hypothetic minimal neural substrate of these processes
  • mutual influences between different semiotic competences and low level cognitive tasks (attention, perceptual categorization, motor skill)
  • hierarchical presupposition of fundamental kinds of semiotic competences
  • symbol grounding processes

Frameworks

  • Theoretical Framework
    • Charles Sanders Peirce's Philosophy of Sign, Phenomenology and Pragmatism
    • Ecological Psychology
    • Embodied and situated cognitive science
    • Biosemiotics
  • Experimental Frameworks
    • Ethology and Neuroethology
    • Experimental Psychology
    • Synthetic Psychology
    • Complex Adaptive System (self-organization dynamics)
    • Biologically inspired computation
      • Evolutionary computation
      • ALife
      • Synthetic Ethology
      • Artificial immune systems

Unicamp