Fourth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
June 23rd through June 26th, 2016

The goal of the Advances in Cognitive Systems conference is to bring together researchers interested in building cognitive systems that focus on high-level cognition and decision making, reliance on rich, structured representations, and incorporation of insights about human thinking. This venue is for dissemination of research results pertaining to the original, yet unanswered, questions of Artificial Intelligence: to produce computational artifacts that reproduce a broad range of human cognitive abilities. The conference welcomes work on any topic related to the representation or organization of complex knowledge structures, their use in multi-step cognition, or their acquisition from experience or instruction. Some functional capabilities that arise in this context include, but are not limited to:
Conceptual Inference and Reasoning
·         Memory Storage and Retrieval
·         Language Processing
·         Social Cognition and Interaction
·         High-level Execution and Control
·         Problem Solving and Heuristic Search
·         Cognitive Aspects of Emotion and Personality
·         Metacognition and Meta-level Reasoning
·         Structural Learning and Knowledge Capture
·         Cognitive Vision and High-level Perception

Paper Submission, Review, and Publication Manuscripts are limited to 12 pages.  Papers accepted for the conference will be allotted up to an additional four papers for further elaboration.  Accepted papers may also be invited to appear in the online journal, Advances in Cognitive Systems.  Submissions should be formatted according to instructions provided at http://www.cogsys.org/formatting, which provides Latex and Word templates. Each submission should state explicitly the problem or capability it addresses, describe its response to this problem, make claims about this approach, and provide evidence in support of these claims. Every paper should also discuss related efforts, examine limitations of the reported work, and outline plans for future research. Because the conference aims to encourage research toward a broader understanding of intelligence, its criteria include demonstrating new functionality, integrating different facets of intelligence, presenting a novel approach to an established problem, explaining complex cognition in humans, and formally analyzing a difficult new task. We also welcome submissions on new problems or testbeds that challenge existing approaches. Each submission will be assigned to multiple referees who will evaluate the paper for its contribution to understanding cognitive systems, clarity of claims about this contribution, convincing evidence in support of those claims, and cogent presentation of its ideas to readers. We encourage authors to examine the review form (http://www.cogsys.org/review-form-2016) before drafting their manuscripts to ensure that their submissions address all of the dimensions on which reviewers will evaluate them. The conference aims to be as inclusive as possible while still fostering innovative research on the computational nature of intelligence. The conference FAQ page (http://www.cogsys.org/faq) attempts to clarify the scope of the event. Authors who have questions about whether their research is appropriate for the meeting should contact the Conference Chairs, via acs2016@cs.northwestern.edu, for additional information. Important Dates for Paper Submission March 17th (midnight PDT):  Deadline for paper submission April 15th:  Decisions about paper acceptance May 12th:  Deadline for final papers May 12th:  Deadline for early registration June 23-26th:  Conference Workshop Proposals ACS invites proposals for half-day or full day workshops to be held at the end of the conference on the afternoon of Sunday, June 26th. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to meet and discuss targeted issues pertaining to cognitive systems — providing an intimate and informal setting for active exchange among researchers, developers, and users on topics of current interest. The format of workshops will be determined by their organizers. Organizers are highly encouraged to propose alternative formats beyond paper/poster presentations, and should encourage the submission and presentation of position papers that discuss new research ideas. Proposals for workshops should be 2-3 pages in length and describe the topic, the format, and an explanation of target participation. Workshop organizers must submit their proposals via email to ACS2016@cs.northwestern.edu by March 17th.