Serena Marchesi

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia | IIT · Social Cognition in Human-Robot Interaction (S4HRI)

In daily social interactions, we need to be able to navigate efficiently through our social environment. According to Dennett (1971), explaining and predicting others’ behavior with reference to mental states (adopting the intentional stance) allows efficient social interaction. Today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple’s...

The increasing presence of robots in society necessitates a deeper understanding into what attitudes people have toward robots. People may treat robots as mechanistic artifacts or may consider them to be intentional agents. This might result in explaining robots' behavior as stemming from operations of the mind (intentional interpretation) or as a...

The presence of artificial agents in our everyday lives is continuously increasing. Hence, the question of how human social cognition mechanisms are activated in interactions with artificial agents, such as humanoid robots, is frequently being asked. One interesting question is whether humans perceive humanoid robots as mere artifacts (interpreting...

Humanoid robots are a useful research tool to understand which factors trigger the adoption of the Intentional Stance (i.e., the attribution of mental states). The InStance Test (IST), assesses this with the isolated robot subscale and the social robot subscale - where higher scores reflect a greater tendency to adopt the Intentional Stance. Previo...

Recent studies suggest that people can interact with robots as social agents. However, it is still unclear what mental processes people rely on when interacting with robots. One core process in social cognition is the adoption of intentional stance, a strategy that humans use to interpret the behavior of others with reference to mental states. In t...

One of the key questions in human–robot interaction research is whether humans perceive robots as intentional agents, or rather only as mindless machines. Research has shown that, in some contexts, people do perceive robots as intentional agents. However, the role of prior exposure to robots as a factor potentially playing a role in the attribution...

One of the key questions in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research is whether humans perceive robots as intentional agents, or rather only as mindless machines. Research has shown that, in some contexts, people do perceive robots as intentional agents. However, the role of prior exposure to robots as a factor potentially playing a role in the attri...

Facing robotic agents, we cannot help but ascribe them anthropomorphic characteristics. While this cognitive process has been extensively studied, numerous questions remain about how the tendency to anthropomorphize is related to individual differences and personality traits (i.e. phenotypes). Understanding what generates inter-individual differenc...

Humanoid robots are a useful research tool to understand which factors trigger the adoption of the Intentional Stance (i.e., the attribution of mental states). The InStance Test (IST), assesses this with the isolated robot subscale and the social robot subscale - where higher scores reflect a greater tendency to adopt the Intentional Stance. Previo...

Recent studies suggest that people can interact with robots as social agents. However, it is still unclear what mental processes people rely on when inter-acting with robots. One core process in social cognition is the adoption of intentional stance, a strategy that humans use to interpret the behavior of others with reference to mental states. In...

How individuals interpret robots’ actions is a timely question in the context of the general approach to increase robot’s presence in human social environment in the decades to come. Facing robots, people might have a tendency to explain their actions in mentalistic terms, granting them intentions. However, how default or controllable this process...

Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to ascribe human characteristics to nonhuman agents. Due to the increased interest in social robotics, anthropomorphism has become a core concept of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies. However, the wide use of this concept resulted in an interchangeability of its definition. In the present study, we propos...

How individuals interpret robots’ actions is a timely question in the context of the general approach to increase robot’s presence in human social environment in the decades to come. Facing robots, people might have a tendency to explain their actions in mentalistic terms, granting them intentions. However, how automatic or controllable this proces...

In the decades to come, robots could become more present in the human environment increasing the likelihood to interact with them. When reasoning about them, individuals tend to endow robots with human-like characteristics such as intentions or emotions, they develop attitudes toward them and differ in their likelihood to cooperate with them . Howe...

Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to ascribe nonhuman agents with characteristics and capacities such as cognitions, intentions, or emotions. Due to the increased interest in social robotic, anthropomorphism has become a core concept of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies. However, the wide use of this concept resulted in an interchangeabil...

Research highlighted that Western and Eastern cultures differ in socio-cognitive mechanisms, such as social inclusion. Interestingly, social inclusion is a phenomenon that might transfer from human-human to human-robot relationships. Although the literature has shown that individual attitudes towards robots are shaped by cultural background, little...

In this paper, we report on a study in which we used an other-report version of the HEXACO–60, a questionnaire designed to assess human personality, to evaluate how people perceive the personality traits of robots. The results showed that a four-factor measurement model fitted the data better than the expected six-factor one and suggested that the...

Evidence from cognitive psychology showed that cultural differences influence human social cognition, leading to a different activation of social cognitive mechanisms. A growing corpus of literature in Human-Robot Interaction is investigating how culture shapes cognitive processes like anthropomorphism or mind attribution when humans face artificia...

In human-robot interactions, people tend to attribute to robots mental states such as intentions or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This cognitive strategy is termed “intentional stance”. Adopting the intentional stance influences how one will consider, engage and behave towards robots. However, people differ in their likelihood...

In this paper, we report on a study in which we used an observer-report version of the HEXACO–60, a questionnaire designed to assess human person- ality, to evaluate how people perceive the personality traits of robots. The results showed that a four-factor measurement model fitted the data better than the ex- pected six-factor one and suggested th...

Research highlighted that Western and Eastern cultures differ in socio-cognitive mechanisms, such as social inclusion. Interestingly, social inclusion is a phe-nomenon that might transfer from human-human to human-robot relationships. Although the literature has shown that individual attitudes towards robots are shaped by cultural background, littl...

Understanding how and when humans attribute intentionality to artificial agents is a key issue in contemporary human and technological sciences. This paper addresses the question of whether adopting intentional stance can be modulated by exposure to a 3D animated robot character, and whether this depends on the human-likeness of the character's beh...

Humans interpret and predict others’ behaviors by ascribing them intentions or beliefs, or in other words, by adopting the intentional stance. Since artificial agents are increasingly populating our daily environments, the question arises whether (and under which conditions) humans would apply the “human-model” to understand the behaviors of these...

In human-robot interaction, one key factor to predict and understand how human engage and interact with robots is how the inter-individual differences in how they perceive, consider and feel toward robots. Building on the theories of social categorization and dehumanization we aimed to develop a new tool assessing the perceived conceptual distance...

Facing robotic agents we cannot help but ascribe them anthropomorphic characteristics. While this cognitive process has been extensively studied, numbers of question remain regarding how the tendency to anthropomor-phize is related to individual differences and personality traits. In two studies we aimed to evaluate the idea that anthropomorphism a...

In human-robot interactions, people tend to attribute them mental states such as intentionality to make sense of their behaviour:the intentional stance. These inferences deeply influence how one will consider, engage and behave towards robots. However,people highly differ in their likelihood to adopt this intentional stance. Therefore it seems cruc...

The increasing presence of robots in society necessitates a deeper understanding into what attitudes people have toward robots. People may treat robots as mechanistic artifacts or may consider them to be intentional agents. This might result in explaining robots’ behavior as stemming from operations of the mind (intentional interpretation) or as a...

The presence of artificial agents in our everyday lives is continuously increasing. Hence, the question of how human social cognition mechanisms are activated when we interact with artificial agents, such as humanoid robots, has been asked. One interesting question is whether humans perceive humanoid robots as mere artefacts (interpreting their beh...

Humans interpret and predict behavior of others with reference to mental states or, in other words, by means of adopting the intentional stance. How to measure the likelihood to adopt the Intentional Stance towards humanoid robots still remain to be addressed. The present study investigated to what extent individuals adopt the intentional stance in...

Understanding the human cognitive processes involved in the interaction with artificial agents is crucial for designing socially capable robots. During social interactions, humans tend to explain and predict others’ behavior adopting the intentional stance, that is, assuming that mental states drive behavior. However, the question of whether humans...

Designing artificial agents that can closely imitate human behavior, might influence humans in perceiving them as intentional agents. Nonetheless, the factors that are crucial for an artificial agent to be perceived as an animated and anthropomorphic being still need to be addressed. In the current study, we investigated some of the factors that mi...

Humans predict others’ behavior based on mental state inferences and expectations created on previous interactions. On the brink of the introduction of artificial agents in our social environment, the question of whether humans would use similar cognitive mechanisms to interact with these agents gains relevance. Recent research showed that people c...

Gaze behavior of humanoid robots is an efficient mechanism for cueing our spatial orienting, but less is known about the cognitive-affective consequences of robots responding to human directional cues. Here, we examined how the extent to which a humanoid robot (iCub) avatar directed its gaze to the same objects as our participants affected engageme...

Unfortunately, the authors of this article had failed to add an acknowledgement to their contribution. This missing acknowledgement was added to the article and reads as follows: Acknowledgement: This work received support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant awarded...

Humans predict others’ behavior based on mental state inferences and expectations created on previous interactions. On the brink of the introduction of artificial agents in our social environment, the question of whether humans would use similar cognitive mechanisms to interact with these agents gains relevance. Recent research showed that people c...

Understanding how humans adopt the intentional stance toward artificial agents is fundamental. The adoption of intentional stance towards artificial agents can require some cognitive effort due to a possible conflict. Nowadays, pupillary response is a reliable psychophysiological measure of cognitive effort. In the present study, we investigated wh...

Awarded as second best poster at the 3rd workshop from the series "Understanding others: Integration of Social Cognitive and Affective Processes", Dresden, 13-14 September 2018.

In daily social interactions, we explain and predict behaviours of other humans by referring to mental states that we assume underlie their behaviours. In other words, we adopt the intentional stance (Dennett, 1971) towards other humans. However, today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple’s Siri to GPS navigation systems. I...

Gaze behavior of humanoid robots is an efficient mechanism for cueing our spatial orienting, but less is known about the cognitive–affective consequences of robots responding to human directional cues. Here, we examined how the extent to which a humanoid robot (iCub) avatar directed its gaze to the same objects as our participants affected engageme...