Thinking Like Humans

Dr. Elisabeth Zuber-Knost
Press Officer

Kaiserstraße 12
76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 721/608-2089
Fax: +49 (0) 721/608-3658

To remember, learn, plan, imagine - cognitive capabilities of humans are subjects of a number of research projects, in particular in information science. From April 2 to 4, roundabout 200 experts will meet at the International Conference on Cognitive Systems (CogSys 2008) in the Audimax of the Universität Karlsruhe to discuss current trends, latest results, and visions.

For details, please contact:

Klaus Rümmele
Public Relations and Marketing (PKM)
Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
Phone: +49 (0) 721 608-8153
Fax: +49 (0) 721 608-3658
E-mail

Cognitive systems process texts, images or spoken language and adapt their behavior flexibly to various situations. They shall act without any direct participation of man and, at the same time, interact with him and integrate in his environment without any risks. This is the basis of a number of studies and developments in various fields of research, e.g. robotics that is modeled on humans and covered by the collaborative research center 588 at the Universität Karlsruhe, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Other projects deal with language and communication, the design of software and hardware or learning systems.

These issues make up the program of the conference that will start on Wednesday, April 2, with the presentation of a number of EU projects. On Thursday, April 3, and Friday, April 4, lectures and discussions will highlight various aspects. Presentations will be held by Yiannis Aloimonos, Head of the Computer Vision Laboratory of the Center for Automation Research of the University of Maryland in the USA, Rolf Pfeifer, Head of the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence of the Institute for Information Science of the University of Zurich, Helge Ritter, scientist in the field of neuroinformatics and winner of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz award from the Engineering Faculty of the University of Bielefeld, Mark Steedman, professor of computer linguistics and artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, and Collete Maloney, Head of the Cognition Department of the European Commission.

Poster exhibitions will accompany the program. Presentations relating to the EU projects will be displayed over the entire duration of the conference, presentations relating to the conference topics will be on display on Thursday and Friday only.

Journalists are invited to a round table on Thursday, April 3, 18.00 to 19.00 hrs, at the Audimax (Strasse am Forum 1, Building No. 30.95) to ask questions on the conference and the individual topics (registration: See contact data).

The organization committee of the conference consists of representatives from international universities and research institutions as well as from the European Commission. The conference in Karlsruhe was prepared by the local Institute for Technical Information Science of the Universität Karlsruhe.

For the program of the conference, click: http://www.cogsys2008.org/

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) represents the merger of the Universität Karlsruhe with the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. Altogether, it has 8000 employees and an annual budget of 700 million Euros.

The KIT will be an institution of internationally excellent research and teaching in natural and engineering sciences. KIT shall attract the best experts from all over the world, set new standards in teaching and promotion of young scientists, and establish the leading European center in the field of energy research. KIT will assume a leading role in nanosciences worldwide. It is the objective of KIT to be one of the most important cooperation partners of industry.