Federico Manzi
Papers
27
Total Citations
632
H-Index
12
About
Federico Manzi is a developmental and social psychologist whose research sits at the compelling intersection of human-robot interaction, cognitive development, and social robotics. Based at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Manzi has built a distinguished body of work exploring how children, young adults, and older populations perceive, trust, and attribute mental states to humanoid robots. His most influential contributions examine how children develop trust relationships with robots and whether they extend Theory of Mind capacities — the ability to attribute beliefs, intentions, and emotions — to robotic agents across the lifespan. His 2020 paper on children's mental state attribution to humanoid robots has accumulated 113 citations, while his equally impactful work on trust in child-robot interaction has drawn 111 citations, reflecting the field's urgent need to understand these emerging social dynamics. Manzi has also investigated fairness, deception, and referential gaze in child-robot contexts, demonstrating that children actively engage with robots as social partners in morally and cognitively sophisticated ways. More recently, Manzi has extended his gaze toward aging populations, examining how socially assistive robotics can support individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment. With a cumulative citation record exceeding 500, his work is shaping how psychologists, educators, and clinicians think about human-robot relationships across the entire human lifespan.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Shall I Trust You? From Child–Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships111 citations · 2020
- 3Theory of Mind and Humanoid Robots From a Lifespan Perspective86 citations · 2018
- 4
- 5Robotics in Clinical and Developmental Psychology36 citations · 2020
- 6
- 7
- 8Machines Like Us and People Like You: Toward Human–Robot Shared Experience20 citations · 2021
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- 10