USC College Department of Psychology

Michael Arbib

University Professor, Fletcher Jones Chair in Computer Science, and Professor of Computer Science, Biological Sciences, and Psychology

Contact Information
Office: HNB B3
Phone: (213)740-9220
E-mail: arbib@pollux.usc.edu

Education

B.S. Mathematics, University of Sydney, Australia, 1/1960
Ph.D. Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1/1963

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests

The thrust of Michael Arbib's work is expressed in the title of his first book, Brains, Machines and Mathematics (McGraw-Hill,1964). The brain is not a computer in the current technological sense, but he has based his career on the argument that we can learn much about machines from studying brains, and much about brains from studying machines. He has thus always worked for an interdisciplinary environment in which computer scientists and engineers can talk to neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. At the University of Massachusetts he helped found the Center for Systems Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, for each of which he served as director. At USC, he was founder and first Director of the Center for Neural Engineering. His research focuses on the coordination of perception and action.This is tackled at two levels: via schema theory, which is applicable both in top-down analyses of brain function and human cognition as well as in studies of machine vision and robotics; and through the detailed analysis of neural networks, working closely with the experimental findings of neuroscientists on humans and monkeys. He is also engaged in research on the evolution of brain mechanisms for human language.

Publications

Book Chapter

Bota, M., Arbib, M. (2002). NeuroHomology Database: an online KMS for handling and evaluation of the neurobiological information. pp. p. 230-220. Norwell, MA: Neuroscience databases/Kluwer Academic Press.

Journal Article

Bota, M., Arbib, M. (2004). Integrating databases and expert systems for the analysis of brain structures, connections, and homologies. Neuroinformatics/Humane. pp. p. 20-59.
Arbib, M., Bota, M. (2004). Evolving Mirror Systems: Homologies and the Nature of Neuroinformatics. Trends in Cognitive Sciences/Elsevier. Vol. 8(7), pp. p.290-291.
Arbib, M., Bota, M. (2003). Language evolution: neural homologies and neuroinformatics. Neural Networks/Elsevier. Vol. 16(9), pp. p.1237-1260.
Bota, M., Arbib, M. (2001). The NeuroHomology Database. Neurocomputing/Elsevier. Vol. 38-40, pp. pp.1627-1631.

Honors and Awards

Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Western Australia, 9/2004