The theme of this book on human and machine perception is communication, interaction, and integration. For each basic topic there are invited lectures, corresponding to approaches in nature and machines, and a panel discussion. The lectures present the state of the art, outlining open questions and stressing synergies among the disciplines related to perception. The panel discussions are forums for open debate. The wide spectrum of topics allows comparison and synergy and can stimulate new approaches.

The theme of this book on human and machine perception is communication, interaction, and integration. For each basic topic there are invited lectures, corresponding to approaches in nature and machines, and a panel discussion.

Representing and coding for communication. One eye, two eyes ... how many eyes? Notes and reflections on vision systems for mobile robotics / G. Adorni, S. Cagnoni, and M. Mordonini. A note on pictorial information / V. Di Gesù. Biomedical signal processing and modeling : multiscale and multiorgan integration of information / S. Cerrutti. The binding problem and the emergence of perceptual meaning / E. Pessa -- Exploration and discovering in very large dataset. Sequence rule models for web usage mining / P. Cerchiello and P. Giudici. An Improved 3D face recognition method based on normal map / A. F. Abate ... [et al.]. Entropy measures in image classification / A. Casanova ... [et al.]. Complex objects classified by morphological shape analysis and elliptical Fourier descriptors / B. Ballarò ... [et al.] -- Information exchange : machine versus machine. Visual attention mechanisms for information visualization / R. Marmo and M. Valle. Integrating human and machine perception to reverse-engineer the human vision system / R. Piroddi and M. Petrou. Situated vision : a step further towards autonomous systems / B. Zavidovique and R. Reynaud. Recognizing occluded face using fractals / A. F. Abate ... [et al.]

The following are th€:" proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Human and Machine Perception held in Trabia, Italy, on July 21~25, 1996, under the auspices of two Institutions: the Cybernetic and Biophysics Group (GNCB) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the 'Centro Interdipartimentale di Tecnologie della Conoscenza' ofPalenno University. A broad spectrum of topics are covered in this series, ranging from computer perception to psychology and physiology of perception (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.). The theme of this workshop was: "Human and Machine Perception: Information Fusion". The goal of information and sensory data fusion is to integrate internal knowledge with complementary and/or redundant information from many sensors to achieve (and maintain) a better knowledge of the environment. The mechanism behind the integration of information is one of the most difficult challenges in understanding human and robot perception. The workshop consisted of a pilot phase of eight leCtures introducing perception sensorialities in nature and artificial systems, and of five subsequent modules each consisting of two lectures (dealing with solutions in nature and machines respectively) and a panel discussion.

With the advance of speech, image and video technology, human-computer interaction (HCI) will reach a new phase.In recent years, HCI has been extended to human-machine communication (HMC) and the perceptual user interface (PUI). The final goal in HMC is that the communication between humans and machines is similar to human-to-human communication. Moreover, the machine can support human-to-human communication (e.g. an interface for the disabled). For this reason, various aspects of human communication are to be considered in HMC. The HMC interface, called a multimodal interface, includes different types of input methods, such as natural language, gestures, face and handwriting characters.The nine papers in this book have been selected from the 92 high-quality papers constituting the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Multimodal Interface (ICMI '99), which was held in Hong Kong in 1999. The papers cover a wide spectrum of the multimodal interface.

This book serves as an introduction to HMC as a specific area of study within communication and to the research possibilities of HMC. The research presented here focuses on people's interactions with multiple technologies used within different contexts from a variety of epistemological and methodological approaches.

The following are the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Human and Machine Perception held in Pavia, Italy, on September 14 -17, 1998. This edition has been under the auspices of two Institutions: the Cybernetic and Biophysics Group (GNCB) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), the Centro Interdipartimentale di Scienze Cognitive, of Pavia University and the Centro Interdipartimentale Tecnologie della Conoscenza, of Palermo University. A wide spectrum of topics is covered in this series, ranging from computer perception to psychology and physiology of perception, for analysing and comparing biological and artificial approaches. The theme of this workshop was focused on "Emergence, Attention and Creativity". The workshop structure consisted of five modules each one composed of two invited lectures (dealing with solutions in nature and machines respectively) and a panel discussion. The lectures focused on presenting the state-of-the-art and outlining open questions. In particular, they sought to stress links, suggesting possible synergies between different cultural areas. The panel discussion was conceived as a forum for an open debate, briefly introduced by each panellist, and mainly aimed at deeper investigation for the different approaches and strictly related topics. The panellists were asked to prepare a few statements on hot-points, which were delivered in advance to the participants as a guide for a qualified discussion.