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About

Francesca Ciardo is a cognitive scientist whose research sits at the intersection of social cognition, human-robot interaction (HRI), and attention, with a particular focus on how humans perceive and respond to humanoid robots as social agents. Her work has made substantial contributions to understanding the psychological mechanisms that underpin our social interactions with robots, accumulating hundreds of citations across her publication record. Ciardo's most influential work explores whether humans naturally adopt the "intentional stance" toward humanoid robots — attributing mental states and intentions to them much as we do with other people (215 citations). Complementing this, she has investigated how eye contact and mutual gaze shape engagement and attentional orienting in both human and robot interactions, demonstrating that eye contact with robots can meaningfully modulate cognitive and social processes (85 and 79 citations). Her research further reveals that attributing intentional agency to robots diminishes one's own sense of agency, mirroring effects observed in human-human interaction (78 citations). Beyond social robotics, Ciardo has explored behavioral variability as a marker distinguishing human from machine in nonverbal Turing tests, and examined individual differences in robot attitudes as behavioral predictors. Her body of work provides foundational insights for designing socially intelligent robots and understanding the cognitive underpinnings of human sociality.