Adaptive Behavior
Adaptive Behavior is an indexed, international peer reviewed journal that publishes original research and review articles on adaptive behavior in biological systems and autonomous artificial systems.
Since 1992 it has offered ethologists, psychologists, behavioral ecologists, computer scientists, philosophers, neuroscientists, and robotics researchers a forum for discussing new findings as well as for comparing insights and approaches across disciplines. The journal explores mechanisms, organizational principles, and architectures that can be expressed in computational, physical, or mathematical models related to the both the functions and dysfunctions of adaptive behavior.
The journal publishes articles, reviews, short communications, target articles and commentaries addressing challenges in the cognitive and behavioral sciences, and including topics such as perception and motor control, embodied cognition, learning and evolution, neural mechanisms, action selection and behavioral sequences, motivation and emotion, characterization of materials and environments, decision making, collective and social behavior, navigation, foraging, communication and signaling.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Adaptive Behavior is available on SAGE Journals Online.
The study and simulation of adaptive behavior in natural and artificial systems has always involved the convergence of several disciplines, interests, and methods. Since its inception in 1992, the pages of this journal have reflected a cross-fertilization between the sciences of the artificial, the sciences of living systems, and the sciences of the mind. As a result, Adaptive Behavior has been, and continues to be, a forum for innovative, creative, yet rigorous and peer-reviewed work on complex adaptive systems, robotic and computational investigations of behavior and cognition, as well as novel theoretical developments and applications.
The general mission of Adaptive Behavior has not changed fundamentally even as the journal, like any good adaptive system, assimilates and accommodates to new challenges and open questions. Accordingly, our particular aims are constantly on the move, as they are driven no only by general advances in knowledge, as occurs within any well-defined research discipline, but also by the birth of new research programs out of the stimulating intellectual milieu of interdisciplinary debate and collaboration. A key purpose of this journal is to facilitate such creative work by being the source of new ideas, the forum for novel recombination, and a place to ask difficult questions that are rarely asked at the core of individual disciplines.
Realizing these goals means encouraging high-quality publications and debate in several exciting and emerging research areas. In particular, the journal aims to contribute to the consolidation of new approaches to cognitive science, especially research related to the consolidation of new approaches to cognitive science, especially research related to "4E cognition" (embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition), including the predictive coding framework, autopoietic and sensorimotor theory, as well as dynamical and ecological approaches to psychology. This journal is equally a fitting home for expanding research on the possibilities of intelligence without a central nervous system, such as behavior-based approaches to the origin of life, plant cognition and the adaptive capacities of multi-agent and social systems. Another important area is living technology, which includes morphological computation, deep neural networks, soft robotics, and other advances in the methods and practical applications of bio-inspired robotics and self-optimization.
In particular, we identify the following research challenges:
- To better understand the adaptive and cognitive capacities of (bio-)chemical systems
- To concretize predictive coding into a framework that can be more easily applied to advancing actual examples of cognitive robotics
- To replicate biological autonomy in artificial systems (or to demonstrate why this cannot be done)
- To determine whether the various new approaches to the science of mind are compatible or, alternatively, to determine their competing predictions
- To better understand what (if any) are the limits of intelligence without a nervous system and intelligence without representations
- To clarify the nature of the normativity inherent in living systems in such a way that it could improve cognitive robotics and living technology
- To better understand the conditions under which multi-agent and social systems generate collective properties that benefit their components
- To search for new materials that allow for more adaptive robot bodies
Contributions that address one or more of these research challenges are particularly welcomed.
Submissions from the general area of machine learning will be returned without review unless the findings have clear scientific relevance.
| Tom Froese | Assistant Professor, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Alberto Antonioni | Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain |
| Farshad Arvin | University of Durham, UK |
| Nathaniel Barrett | University of Navarra, Spain |
| Massimiliano Cappuccio | University of New South Wales, Australia |
| Anthony Chemero | University of Cincinnati, USA |
| Luisa Damiano | University of Messina, Italy |
| Ezequiel Di Paolo | University of the Basque Country, Spain |
| James A. Dixon | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Dobromir Dotov | McMaster University, Canada |
| Guillaume Dumas | University of Montréal, Canada |
| Ángel E. Tovar | National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico |
| Matthew Egbert | University of Auckland, New Zealand |
| Manuel Heras Escribano | University of the Basque Country, Spain |
| The Anh Han | Teesside University (School of computing, engineering and digital technologies) |
| Matej Hoffmann | Czech Technical University, Prague |
| Hiroyuki Iizuka | Hokkaido University, Japan |
| Eduardo J. Izquierdo | Indiana University, USA |
| Mark M. James | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Michael Kirchhoff | University of Wollongong, Australia |
| Julian Kiverstein | Amsterdam University Medical Centres, Netherlands |
| Bruno Lara | Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEM), Mexico |
| Iwin Leenen | Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico) |
| Tom Lenaerts | Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium? |
| Sébastien Lerique | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Lorena Lobo | Universidad a Distancia de Madrid, Spain |
| Robert Lowe | University of Gothenburg, Sweden |
| Poramate Manoonpong | University of Southern Denmark, Denmark |
| Georg Martius | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany |
| Marek McGann | University of Limerick, Ireland |
| Russell Meyer | Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Geoff Nitschke | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Jekaterina Novikova | Heriot-Watt University, UK |
| Karenleigh A. Overmann | University of Colorado, USA |
| Alexandra Siobhan Penn | University of Surrey, UK |
| Andrew Philippides | University of Sussex, UK |
| Germain Poizat | Université de Genève, Switzerland |
| Simon T. Powers | Edinburgh Napier University, UK |
| Etienne Roesch | University of Reading, UK |
| Erol Sahin | Middle East Technical University, Turkey |
| Christoph Salge | University of Hertfordshire, UK |
| Ekaterina Sangati | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Jeffrey Schank | University of California (UC Davis), USA |
| Prof Itay Shani | Sun Yat Sen University, Zhuhai, China |
| Pierre Steiner | Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France |
| Serge Thill | Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Netherlands |
| Mario Villalobos | Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile |
| David White | Staffordshire University, UK |
| Myra S Wilson | Aberystwyth University, UK |
| Xiaofeng Xiong | University of Southern Denmark, Denmark |
| David H. Ackley | University of New Mexico, USA |
| Michael Arbib | University of Southern California, USA |
| Andrew Barto | University of Massachusetts, USA |
| Manuel G. Bedia | University of Zaragoza, Spain |
| Randall D. Beer | Indiana University, USA |
| Rodney A Brooks | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA |
| Joanna J Bryson | University of Bath, UK |
| Seth Bullock | University of Bristol, UK |
| Holk Cruse | University of Bielefeld, Germany |
| Kerstin Dautenhahn | University of Hertfordshire, UK |
| Daniel Dennett | Tufts University, USA |
| Marco Dorigo | Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium |
| Kenji Doya | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Jörg-Peter Ewert | University of Kassel, Germany |
| Dario Floreano | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Nicolas Franceschini | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France |
| David E. Goldberg | University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, USA |
| John Grefenstette | George Mason University, USA |
| Stephen Grossberg | Boston University, USA |
| Verena V. Hafner | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany |
| Martin Michael Hanczyc | Università degli Studi di Trento, Italy |
| Inman Harvey | University of Sussex, UK |
| Phil Husbands | University of Sussex, UK |
| Daniel D. Hutto | University of Wollongong, Australia |
| Auke Jan Ijspeert | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Takashi Ikegami | University of Tokyo, Japan |
| Alvaro Moreno | University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain |
| Stefano Nolfi | Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (CNR-ISTC), Italy |
| Herbert L. Roitblat | Mimecast, USA |
| Francisco C. Santos | Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal |
| J.A. Scott Kelso | Florida Atlantic University & Ulster University,USA and Ireland |
| Olaf Sporns | Indiana University, USA |
| Luc Steels | Vrij Universiteit Brussels (VUB), Belgium |
| Sune Vork Steffensen | University of Southern Denmark, Denmark |
| Prof. Jun Tani | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Frederick M. Toates | The Open University, UK |
| Peter M Todd | Indiana University, USA |
| Barbara Webb | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Stewart W. Wilson | Prediction Dynamics, USA |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ad-behav to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Adaptive Behavior will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
2.7 Animal Research ethics
2.8 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Adaptive Behavior, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
- Articles - Manuscripts reporting original research, typically containing between 6,000 and 12,000 words.
- Reviews - Major overviews of domains of intellectual inquiry, typically containing more than 12,000 words.
- Commentaries - Extremely brief communications responding to previously published articles, typically containing under 500 words.
- Opinions - Evaluations of existing research, hypotheses, and future trends, typically under 2,000 words.
- Short communications - detailing original research results, typically containing under 2,000 words.
- Book reviews - Short communications responding to previously published books, typically under 2,000 words.
- Reports - Evaluations of conferences, workshops, and other intellectual gatherings, typically under 2,000 words.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
(i) Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
(ii) Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii) Approved the version to be published,
(iv) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
Adaptive Behavior requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of Adaptive Behavior to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.
All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.
Papers will only be published if the experimental procedures employed conform with the accepted principles of how animals are used in biomedical science. Usually the principles applied will be those specified in the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes and its appendices and/or the National Research Council Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
If the experimental design or programme of work reported in the manuscript raises particular ethical or welfare concerns, the Editorial Board will consider the current UK legislation Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and its contemporary interpretation.
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
Sage acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles. Once accepted for publication, the author is expected to make stimulus material and raw data available, if requested.
Some funders require, and Sage strongly recommends, that you provide a statement on how any underlying research materials related to your paper (for example data, samples or models) can be accessed. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal's platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Adaptive Behavior and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Adaptive Behavior offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Adaptive Behavior adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Adaptive Behavior is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ad-behav to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID iD to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Adaptive Behavior editorial office as follows:
Editor-in-Chief:
Dr. Tom Froese: t.froese@gmail.com