Francesco Bossi
IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italian Institute of Technology
Papers
7
Total Citations
198
H-Index
6
About
Francesco Bossi is a leading researcher at the intersection of social neuroscience and human-robot interaction, investigating how the human brain perceives and responds to robotic agents. His work explores the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying attitudes toward robots, with a focus on how subtle social cues—such as eye contact and gaze behavior—shape human perception and interaction. Bossi’s landmark study, “The human brain reveals resting state activity patterns that are predictive of biases in attitudes toward robots” (72 citations), demonstrated that spontaneous brain activity can predict individual differences in robot-related attitudes, a foundational contribution to the field. His subsequent research on eye contact during joint attention with humanoid robots (41 citations) revealed that robot gaze modulates oscillatory brain activity, mirroring human-human social processing. Bossi has also shown that pupil dilation predicts sensitivity to human-likeness in robot behavior (30 citations), and that robot gaze can influence honesty in human-robot interactions (23 citations). His work on subtle eye movement parameters (17 citations) further highlights how robotic gaze dynamics affect attentional engagement and perceived humanness. Bossi’s research has profound implications for designing socially adept robots and understanding the neural basis of human-robot social cognition.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 4Robot Gaze Behavior Affects Honesty in Human-Robot Interaction23 citations · 2021
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