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About

Basil Wahn investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying how humans perceive and interact with non-human agents, focusing on visual perspective taking (VPT) in human-robot interaction. His work explores whether people spontaneously adopt the visuospatial perspective of humanoid robots and artificial avatars, challenging assumptions about the boundaries of social cognition. In his most cited paper, "Try to See it My Way: Humans Take the Level-1 Visual Perspective of Humanoid Robot Avatars" (2023, 12 citations), Wahn provides compelling evidence that humans do extend this fundamental social cognitive process to robots, resolving conflicting findings in the field. He further refines this understanding through "The influence of robot appearance on visual perspective taking" (2023, 9 citations), testing the mere-appearance hypothesis to determine which visual features trigger social perspective taking. His most recent work (2025) extends these findings to objects that merely imply social presence. With a growing citation record and a focused research program at the intersection of social cognition and robotics, Wahn is establishing himself as a leading voice in understanding how humans cognitively engage with artificial social agents.