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Jun Tani, Ph.D.
Lab. Head, Lab. for Behavior and Dynamic Cognition
RIKEN Brain Science Institute
2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198 Japan
Tel: 048-462-1111 ext.7411  Fax: 048-467-7248

Motivation of Research

Compositionality has been considered as an essential feature of human cognition.
It looks as if meanings of sentences were derived from compositions of words and complex human acts were generated from compositions of reusable behavior primitives. However, if we look at our everyday behaviors, most of them seem to be generated in more "organic" ways rather than in computational ways of, as like, manipulating concrete objects. Our behaviors are quite context-dependent, surprisingly flexible and emergent while being robust and fluent.

Now, our synthetic robotics studies for two decades are ready to show that the self-organization processes of neuro-dynamic systems structured through ample of their sensory-motor level interactions have resulted in so-called the "organic" compositionality that affords the above mentioned properties of human cognitive behaviors. Ultimately, our approaches are extended to elucidate immanent properties of "symbols", "self" and "time" in our subjective mind through the triangular researches on neuroscience, dynamical systems and phenomenology


BDC Lab.
"Organic" Compositionality:
An Account for Immanent Properties of Symbols, Self and Time

Research Summary (2000〜2009) PDF