Antonio Lieto

I am an Associate Professor in Computer Science (INFO/01) at the University of Salerno, where I lead the Cognition, Interaction and Intelligent Technologies Laboratory (CIIT Lab) at the DISPC, and a Research Associate at the ICAR-CNR Institute in Palermo (Italy), Cognitive Systems for Robotics Lab. I do research in Artificial Intelligence, Computational Cognitive Science and Human-Machine Interaction (with a focus on the following areas: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Semantic/Language Technologies, Cognitive Systems and Architectures, Persuasive Technologies, Interactive Intelligent Technologies).

I am currently Associate Editor for Cognitive Systems Research (Elsevier) and, since January 2024, an elected Member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA). I have been Vice-President (2017-2022) of the Italian Association of Cognitive Sciences (AISC) and Deputy Editor in Chief (2020-2023) of JETAI (Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Taylor & Francis).

I am, since 2015, a member of LLC (Interdepartmental Center for Logic, Language and Cognition). I was, from 2019 to 2023, a member of CIRMA (Interdeparmental Center for Research on Multimedia and Audiovideo).

In February 2020 I have been appointed ACM Distinguished Speaker by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).

Email:		alieto AT unisa.it
Mail:		DISPC, Università di Salerno Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy

Short Bio

I am, since October 2023, an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Salerno, DISPC, (Italy). Previously, I was a junior and tenure-track Researcher (RTD-A/RTD-B) in Computer Science (from March 2018 to September 2023), an Adjunct Professor (September 2016 - February 2018) and Post-doc research fellow (May 2012 - February 2018) at Department of Computer Science of the University of Turin. Since February 2014, I am also a Research Associate at the ICAR-CNR Institute in Palermo (Italy), Cognitive Robotics and Social Sensing Lab. From July 2016 to December 2017, I was Research Associate and Scientific Consultant at the MEPhI (National Research Nuclear University, Moscow, Russia). In 2012 I obtained a Ph.D. (dottorato di ricerca) by the University of Salerno (Ph.D. supervisor: Prof. Marcello Frixione) working in the area of Logic and Knowledge Representation with a thesis concerning the problem of "non classical" conceptual representation and reasoning in formal ontologies. In the past years, I have been Visiting Researcher at the University of Haifa (Israel, Dept. of Information Systems, June 2008, host: Prof. Tsvi Kuflik), at Carnegie Mellon University (USA, Dept. of Psychology and School of Computer Science, May-July 2016; host: Prof. Christian Lebiere) and at Lund University (Sweden, Dept. of Cognitive Science, August-September 2016; host: Prof. Peter Gärdenfors). In 2013 I founded the series of international workshops on "Artificial Intelligence and Cognition" (AIC). Since 2015 I am a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Robotics. I have been Vice-President of the Italian Association of Cognitive Sciences (AISC, 2017-2019) and, since January 2024, I am an elected Member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA). In 2018 I was a recipient of the "Outstanding BICA Research Award", an international recognition for my research on cognitive artificial systems and cognitive architectures, from the BICA Society (pdf certificate). I was nominated Distinguished PC Member of the IJCAI-ECAI 2018 conference due to my service provided during the reviewing activity. (pdf certificate - web-link).

Research Interests

My research interests span a variety of neighboring research areas, partially overlapping. In particular I work/have worked on the following topics: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (Ontologies, Description Logics, Semantic Technologies and Commonsense Reasoning), Cognitive Semantics, Natural Language Semantics, Cognitive Architectures and Persuasive Technologies. On these topics I have published more than 90 scientific papers in international books, journals and conferences. I am author of the book "Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds".

Highlights

[H1]: Co-inventor (with Gian Luca Pozzato) of the TCL Logic (Typicality-based Compositional Logic). TCL is the first ever developed formal (i.e. logic-based account) able to model with a unique formalism the problem of both human-like NOUN-NOUN commonsense conceptual combination (i.e. by solving the so-called PET FISH problem, also known as guppy effect) as well as the problem known as conceptual blending (including hierarchical and iterated blending). TCL has been applied to a number of applications ranging from cognitive modelling (e.g. pet-fish problem, the conjunction fallacy and goal-reasoning heuristics) to computational creativity and multimedia and emotion-oriented recommendations. Take a look at all the publications and reasoners developed here.

[H2]: Inventor of the Heterotegeneous Proxytypes Hypothesis providing a coherent framework able to integrate, in the field of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, different types of commonsense knowledge structures and reasoning strategies in a cognitively grounded way. Such hypothesis has led to the development of the DUAL-PECCS system for conceptual inference and categorization and to its its extensions.

[H3]: Inventor of the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to quantitatively and qualitatively rank the different degrees of biological and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order to project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as a source of inspiration. The idea was introduced in the book "Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds".

Detailed Bio, CV, Courses and Publications: Full Curriculum Vitae - Publications - Talks - Teaching - Software

Book: Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds (Routledge, Taylor & Francis 2021).

Watch the book presentation and book discussion on Youtube and listen this dedicated podcast episode on Spotify. Read also the book review on ACM Computing Reviews (PDF version here).
Available on Routledge - Amazon.com - Barnes&Noble - Walmart - IBS.it - Lehmanns.de - ARK.no - Book Depository - WHSmith

Media coverage of my research (selection): La Repubblica (4 Sept. 2018), UnitoNews (4 Sept. 2018), Il Mattino (6 Sept. 2018), Technology Review (Germany) (1 Oct. 2018), Il Mattino (14 March 2020), Il Mattino (7 May 2021), Il Mattino (14 January 2022), TV: Rai 3, Buongiorno Regione (14 December 2022, studio interview), TV: Rai 3, TG Leonardo (28 December 2022), Il Mattino (24 December 2023)

Interview on Scientific Sense Podcast by Gill Eapen (August 2020)

Interview on ReteEconomy (Sky channel 512) in a Public event of scientific divulgation (PAwS) (11 Feb. 2019).

Macchine Pensanti: Risolvere problemi inspirandosi alla creatività umana raccontro di ricerca in FRidA - Il Forum della Ricerca (Università di Torino e Agorà Scienza, Sezione Valorizzazione della Ricerca e del Public Engagement), 10 Apr. 2019. Interview on Rai 3, TG Leonardo 28 December 2022.

List of Radio interviews and Podcast (in italian and english).

News

[N37]: [September 2024] ""Keynote Speker at the 3rd International Conference on Human and Artificial Rationalities (HAR 2024, Paris, France).

[N36]: [September 2024] "Keynote Speker at the 25th Italian Conference on Theoretical Computer Science, September 11-13, Torino"

[N35]: [September 2024] "Invite Lecturer at the First ARTIFICIAL AND HUMAN INTELLIGENCE School at Daghstul, Germany, September 2024"

[N34]: [November 2023] "Keynote Talk at the First Workshop on Cognitive AI @ IJCLR, 3rd International Joint Conference on Learning & Reasoning, University of Bari, November 13-15"

[N33]: [October 2023] "Keynote Talk at the 2023 Annual International Conference on Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Intelligence, the 14th Annual Meeting of the BICA Society (BICA*AI 2023), Ningbo, China, October 13-15"

[N32] [April 2023] Invited talk (webinar) at the Universisade Federal de Sao Paulo (Brazil), (invitee Prof. Walter Lima) on "Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds . The video of the talk is available on the YouTube channel of the University: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoFqklYcEv8, 4th April 2023

[N31]: [November 2022] "Invited Tutorial on "Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds" at the AI*IA 2022, Udine, Italy"

[N30]: [October 2022] I have been invited to act as "Opponent" for the discussion of the Ph.D. thesis of Stevan Tomic, University of Orebro, Sweden, School of Science and Technology. "Ph.D. Thesis defence by Stevan Tomic".

[N29]: [September 2022] I am an invited lecturer (invitee Prof. Michael Beetz) of the "EASE Summer School on Cognition-Enabled Robotics" held at the University of Bremen (Germany) from Sept. 19-23, 2022.

[N28]: [June 2022] The paper "Analyzing the Explanatory Power of Bionic Systems With the Minimal Cognitive Grid" is now published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2022.

[N27]: [August 2021]Invited talk at CARLA Workshop @ FOIS 2021. Title "Heterogeneous Proxytypes as a Unifying Cognitive Framework for Conceptual Representation and Reasoning in Artificial Systems", 16 September 2021.

[N26]: [August 2021]Invited talk at 18th Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence General-Purpose Meeting Group (SIG-AGI). Talk: Machines with human-like commonsense, August 6 2021.

[N25]: [July 2021]"Fabio Bellifemine" Keynote talk at WOA 2021, 22th Workshop "From Objects to Agents", University of Bologna, School of Engineering. Link: http://woa2021.apice.unibo.it/workshop/keynote/.

[N24]: [June 2021]Invited talk at VISCA 2021, Virtual International Symposium on Cognitive Architecture. Invitee: Prof. John Laird (University of Michigan, USA). Talk: Functional and Structural Models of Commonsense Reasoning in Cognitive Architectures, June 2021.

[N23]: [April, 2021] Glad to announce the publication of my book “Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds" by Routledge (Taylor & Francis).

[N22]: [March 2021]Invited talk at the ACM SRM SIGAI Student Chapter as ACM Distinguished Speaker. Talk: Cognitive Heuristics for Commonsense Thinking and Reasoning in the next generation Artificial Intelligence, 30 March, 2021. The announcement of the talk has been widely advertised also on the ACM social platforms (Facebook post, Twitter feed, Linkedin).

[N21]: [February 2021]Invited talk at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT, Robotics, Brains and Cognitive Sciences Department), iCog Initiative. Talk: Cognitive Agents with Commonsense, 18 February, 2021. The slides are available here.

[N20]: [June 10, 2020] I gave an invited lecture for the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on The Cognitive Paradigm in the Artificial Intelligence Research. The lecture was given online due to the COVID-19 issues. The slides are available here.

[N19]: [February 2020] I have been appointed ACM Distinguished Speaker by the ACM. You can request my talks here.

[N18] [August 2018]: I am very glad and honored to have received the "Outstanding Research Award" from the BICA Society in Prague, at BICA/HLAI (Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures/Human Level AI joint Conference) 2018.

[N17] [May 2018]: Invited talk (invitee Prof. Kai-Uwe Kuhnberger) "A Unifying Cognitive Framework for Conceptual Representation and Reasonsing in Artificial Systems: Challenges, Problems and Perspectives at Colloquium of the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabruck, Germany, May 30, 2018.

[N16] [December 2017]: I was in the PC of the IJCAI-ECAI 2018 Conference held in Stockholm on July 13-19. I was nominated Distinguished PC Member of the conference due to my service provided during the reviewing activity. (pdf certificate - web-link)

[N15] [November 2017]: I have organized the first joint AI*IA/AISC panel entitled Can AI and Cognitive Science still live together happily ever after? at the XVI International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence held in Bari in November 2017.

[N13] [August 2017]: Invited talk (invitee Dr. Erik T. Mueller, now at Capital One, ex-IBM Watson Team, USA) "Types and Levels of Knowledge (with Implications for Learning and Reasoning)" at IJCAI 2017 Cognitum Workshop, Melbourne, Australia, August 20, 2017.

[N12] [January 2017]: I am the co-organizer, with Mehul Bhatt (University of Bremen, Germany), of the official IJCAI 2017 Workshop on Cognition and Artificial Intelligence for Human-Centred Design .

[N11][November 2016]: I have been appointed Vice-President of the Italian Society for Cognitive Science (AISC) after being elected Member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Society.

[N10] Invited talk (invitee Prof. Alessandro Saffiotti, Örebro University, Sweden): "Penguins and Polar Bears: A Hybrid Representational and Reasoning Approach for Common Sense Categorization" at the School of Science and Technology, University of Örebro, Sweden, September 13 2016.

[N9] Invited talk (invitee Prof. Peter Gärdenfors, Lund University, Sweden): "Dual Peccs: A Cognitive System for Conceptual Categorization and Reasoning" at the Cognitive Science Series Seminar, Lund University, Sweden, August 31 2016.

[N8] Talk: "Extending the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Architectures with Conceptual Spaces", Conceptual Spaces at Work 2016, Stockholm, Sweden, August 24-27 2016. The video of the talk is available at this link.

[N7] [May-July 2016 and Aug-Sep 2016]: In these periods I have been a visiting researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, USA (host: Prof. Christian Lebiere, School of Computer Science and Department of Psychology) and at Lund University, Sweden, Department of Cognitive Science (host: Prof. Peter Gärdenfors) working on a common project aiming at investigating if/how/to what extent the current KR frameworks of Cognitive Architectures can be extended with Conceptual Spaces in order to grasp some aspect of human conceptualization that are only partially addressed by such systems.

[N6] [21-24 April 2016]: Invited talk at the International School on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures that will be held in Moscow (Russia) from April 21-24 2016. The school is organized and sponsored by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) and by the BICA Society. Invitee: Prof. Alexei Samsonovich (George Mason University, USA and NRNU MEPhI, Department of Cybernetics, Russia). Title of the talk: "Computational Explanation in BICA

[N5] [17-21 September 2015]: Invited talk at the IBM Sponsored Symposium on "Bridging Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence" @ ESCOP 2015 (19th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology), Paphos Cyprus (invitee: Prof. Antonis Kakas, University of Cyprus, Dept. of Computer Science). Other invited speakers of the same Symposium are: Peter Gärdenfors and Pat Langley.

[N4] [17 April 2014]: Invited talk (invitee: Ph.D. Silvano Zipoli Caiani, University of Milan, Department of Philosophy): "Concepts: on the need of an integrated perspective in AI", Neurophilosophy Seminar, University of Milan, Italy.

[N3] [7 March 2014]: Invited talk (invitee: Prof. Christian Freksa, University of Bremen, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Cognitive Systems Group): "A cognitive approach for modeling and reasoning on common sense knowledge in computational ontologies", Spatial Cognition Colloquium Workshop, University of Bremen, Germany, March 2014.

[N2] [20-22 February 2013]: Invited talk (invitee: Prof. Ismo Koponen, University of Helsinki) "Concepts, (Formal) Ontologies and Conceptual Change" at ConChaMo4 workshop, Helsinki, Finland. Full Program available here (Pdf). A summary of the workshop is available on the blog "Cognitive Systems"

[N1] [February 2013] I'm one of the proponents (with Cristina Battaglino, Elena Gianaria, Marco Indaco, Alice Ruggeri, Manuela Sanguinetti) of the project "E-Lisir", that won a funding of 747k euros in the national competition Smart Cities and Communities and Social Innovation

Research Community activities

Since 2012 I have been reviewer for the following journals: Knowledge-Based Systems (Elsevier, Amsterdam); Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier), Cognitive Science (Wiley), Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Artificial Intelligence Review (Springer); ACM Transactions on Human-Robotic Interactions; IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems; IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems; Semantic Web Journal (IOS Press); Behaviour and Information Technology (Taylor and Francis); Applied Ontology (IOS, Amsterdam); Connection Science (Taylor and Francis, UK); Cognitive Systems Research (Elsevier, Amsterdam); Foundations of Science Journal, Springer (Berlin); Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (Elsevier); Review of Philosophy and Psychology (Springer, Berlin); European Journal for Philosophy of Science (Springer); Computers & Electrical Engineering (Elsevier, Amsterdam); Sistemi Intelligenti (Il Mulino, Bologna).

Program Comittee in International Conferences

Program Comittee of IJCAI 2024 Conference, 33rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AI and Creativity Track, Jeju Island, South Korea, August 2024.

Program Comittee of IJCAI 2023 Conference, 32nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Macao, China, August 2023.

Senior Program Comittee of COGSCI 2023 Conference, 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Canada.

Program Comittee of AAMAS 2022 Conference (Knowledge Representation and Reasoning track), 21st International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Auckland, New Zealand, May 2022.

Program Comittee of AAAI 2022 Conference, 36th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, Canada, February 2022.

Program Comittee of IJCAI 2021 Conference, 30th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Montreal, Canada, July 2021.

Program Comittee of AAAI 2021 Conference, 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, Canada, February 2021.

Program Comittee of IJCAI 2020 Conference (IJCAI-PRICAI), 29th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Yokohama, Japan, July 11-17 2020.

Program Comittee of ECAI 2020 Conference, 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, June 8-12 2020.

Program Comittee of AAAI 2020 Conference, 34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, New York City, USA, February 7 to February 12 2020.

Program Comittee of IJCAI 2019 Conference, 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held in Macao, China, 10-16 August 2019.

Program Comittee of AAAI 2019 Conference, 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Honololu, Hawai, USA, Jan. 27th-Feb. 1st 2019.

Senior Program Comittee of COGSCI 2019 Conference, 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Montreal, Canada.

Program Comittee of IEEE ICTAI 2019 Conference, 31 st International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence.

Program Comittee of ACS 2019 Conference, 7th Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems, August 2-5, 2019, Boston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

Program Comittee of AI*IA 2019, XVIII International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 19-22 November 2019, Rende, Italy.

Program Comittee of IJCAI-ECAI 2018 Conference, 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Stockholm, July 13-19 2018. I was nominated Distinguished PC Member of the conference due to my service provided during the reviewing activity. (pdf certificate - web-link).

Program Comittee of IEEE ICTAI 2018 Conference, 30th International Conference on Tools for Artificial Intelligence, held in Volos, Greece, November 5-7, 2018.

Program Comittee of ACS 2018 Conference, The Sixth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems, August 18 to 20, 2018, Stanford University, California, USA.

Program Comittee of AI*IA 2018, XVII International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 20-23 November 2018, Trento, Italy.

Program Comittee of BICA 2018 Conference, 9th International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 22-24 August 2018, Prague, Czech Republic.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2018 Conference, XII International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 18-22 November 2018, Athens, Greece.

Program Comittee of Spatial Cognition 2018, 8th International Conference on Spatial Cognition, 5-8 Sept. 2018, Tuebingen, Germany.

Program Comittee of CreaCogMod 2018 part of the CogSci 2018 - the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, USA.

Program Comittee of CAPNS 2018, Compositional Approaches for Physics, NLP, and Social Sciences (CAPNS 2018), 2 September 2018, Nice, France.

Program Comittee of CCCS 2018, X Cracow Cognitive Science Conference, 12-13 May 2018, Cracow, Poland.

Program Comittee of AI*IA 2017, XVI International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 12-16 November 2017, Bari, Italy.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2017 Conference, XI International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 12-16 November 2017, Barcelona, Spain.

Program Comittee of KMIS 2017 Conference, IX International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing, 1-3 November 2017, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

Program Comittee of BICA 2017 Conference, 8th International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 1-5 August 2017, Moscow, Russia.

Program Comittee of ProSocrates 2017 Workshop on Problem Solving, Creativity and Spatial Reasoning in Cognitive Systems, Bremen, Germany.

Program Comittee of Spatial Cognition 2016 Conference, 7th International Conference on Spatial Cognition, 2-5 August 2016, Philadelphia, USA.

Program Comittee of BICA 2016 Conference, 7th International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 16-19 July 2016, New York, USA.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2016 Conference, X International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 9-13 October 2016, Venice, Italy.

Program Comittee of BICA 2015 Conference, 6th International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 6-8 November 2015, Lyon, France.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2015 Conference, Ninth International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 19-24 July 2015, Nice, France.

Program Comittee of BICA 2014, 5th Internat. Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 7-9 Nov. 2014, MIT Massachussets Institute of Technology, Boston, USA.

Program Comittee of Spatial Cognition 2014 Conference, Sixth International Conference on Spatial Cognition, 15-19 September 2014, Bremen, Germany.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2014 Conference, Eighth International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 24-28 August 2014, Roma, Italy.

Program Comittee of AISC 2014 Conference, XI Annual Congress of the Italian Association for Cognitive Science, 2-5 December 2014, Roma, Italy.

Program Comittee of SEMAPRO 2013 Conference, Seventh International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing, 29 September - October 3 2013, Porto, Portugal.

Program Comittee of AISC 2013 Conference, X Annual Congress of the Italian Association for Cognitive Science, 20-22 September 2013, Napoli, Italy.

Reviewer for LREC 2016 Conference, X International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, 23-28 May, Portoroz, Slovenia.

Reviewer for AI*IA 2015 Conference, XV International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 23-25 September, Reggio Emilia. Italy.

Reviewer for SEMANTICS 2015 Conference, 11th International Conference on Semantic Systems Vienna, 15-17 September, Vienna, Austria.

Reviewer for AI*IA 2013 Conference, XIII International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 4-6 December, Torino. Italy.

Reviewer for SMAP 2012, 7th Semantic and Social Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP) workshop. 3-4 December 2012. Luxembourg.

Co-authors of my papers are (incomplete list):
Marcello Frixione, Daniele Radicioni, Gian Luca Pozzato, Rossana Damiano, Vincenzo Lombardo, Antonio Chella, Christian Lebiere, Alessandro Oltramari, David Vernon, Mehul Bhatt, Bill Kennedy, Niels Taatgen, Tsvi Kuflik, Agnese Augello, Aldo Gangemi, Paul Mulholland, Giovanni Pilato, Ignazio Infantino, Filippo Vella, Diego Marconi.

Last Update: Jun 14, 2024