This book collects together refereed versions of papers presented at the Eighth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW 8). NCPW is a well-established workshop series that brings together researchers from different disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science, neurobiology, philosophy and psychology. The articles are centred on the theme of connectionist modelling of cognition and perceptionn.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings® (ISTP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings® (ISSHP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• CC Proceedings — Engineering & Physical Sciences• CC Proceedings — Biomedical, Biological & Agricultural Sciences

This volume collects together peer reviewed versions of most of the papers presented at the Ninth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW9), held in 2004 at the University of Plymouth (England). The conference invited submissions on neural computation models of all cognitive and psychological processes. The special theme of this year's workshop was “Modeling of Language, Cognition and Action. This topic had the aim to extend the conference appeal from the connectionist psychology community to leaders in neuroscience, robotics and cognitive systems design.The chapters cover the breadth of research in neural computation and psychology, with numerous papers that focus on language modeling, this year's special theme. The book includes chapters from internationally renowned researchers in the various fields of cognitive psychology (such as Art Glenberg and Jonathan Evans) as well as computer science and robotics (such as Stefan Wermter & Stefano Nolfi).The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:• Neuroscience Citation Index®• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings® (ISTP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings® (ISSHP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• CC Proceedings — Engineering & Physical Sciences• CC Proceedings — Biomedical, Biological & Agricultural Sciences

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers who develop computational models to explain and predict cognitive data. The core theme of the 2004 conference was "Integrating Computational Models," encompassing an integration of diverse data through models of coherent phenomena; integration across modeling approaches; and integration of teaching and modeling. This text presents the proceedings of that conference. The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling 2004 sought to grow the discipline of computational cognitive modeling by providing a sophisticated modeling audience for cutting-edge researchers, in addition to offering a forum for integrating insights across alternative modeling approaches in both basic research and applied settings, and a venue for planning the future growth of the discipline. The meeting included a careful peer-review process of 6-page paper submissions; poster-abstracts to include late-breaking work in the area; prizes for best papers; a doctoral consortium; and competitive modeling symposia that compare and contrast different approaches to the same phenomena.

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers who develop computational models that explain and predict cognitive data. The 2004 conference encompassed an integration of diverse data through models of coherent phenomena;

In the past 30 years, face perception has become an area of major interest within psychology. This is the most comprehensive and commanding review of the field ever published.

This state-of-the-art survey contains selected papers contributed by researchers in intelligent systems, cognitive robotics, and neuroscience including contributions from the MirrorBot project and from the NeuroBotics Workshop 2004. The research work presented demonstrates significant novel developments in biologically inspired neural models for use in intelligent robot environments and biomimetic cognitive behavior.

Many of our thoughts and decisions occur without us being conscious of them taking place; connectionism attempts to reveal the internal hidden dynamics that drive the thoughts and actions of both individuals and groups. Connectionist modeling is a radically innovative approach to theorising in psychology, and more recently in the field of social psychology. The connectionist perspective interprets human cognition as a dynamic and adaptive system that learns from its own direct experiences or through indirect communication from others. Social Connectionism offers an overview of the most recent theoretical developments of connectionist models in social psychology. The volume is divided into four sections, beginning with an introduction and overview of social connectionism. This is followed by chapters on causal attribution, person and group impression formation, and attitudes. Each chapter is followed by simulation exercises that can be carried out using the FIT simulation program; these guided exercises allow the reader to reproduce published results. Social Connectionism will be invaluable to graduate students and researchers primarily in the field of social psychology, but also in cognitive psychology and connectionist modeling.