Shensheng Wang

Emory University, University of Central Florida

Papers

Total Citations

354

H-Index

About

Shensheng Wang is a cognitive and social psychologist whose research sits at the fascinating intersection of human perception, social cognition, and artificial agents. He is best known for his influential work on the **uncanny valley phenomenon**, the unsettling feeling people experience when encountering human-like robots or digital avatars that closely—but imperfectly—resemble real humans. His 2015 review, "The Uncanny Valley: Existence and Explanations," has accumulated over 330 citations, establishing itself as a foundational reference for researchers across robotics, psychology, and human-computer interaction. In that work, Wang synthesized more than four decades of scholarship following Masahiro Mori's original 1970 hypothesis, critically evaluating both empirical evidence and theoretical explanations for the effect. His subsequent experimental work probed the temporal dynamics of face animacy perception and tested competing hypotheses—including mind perception and dehumanization—to better understand *why* human replicas trigger eerie responses. More recently, Wang has expanded his scope to examine how aging-related memory changes affect social decision-making involving artificial agents, reflecting a growing commitment to understanding human-AI interaction across the lifespan. Together, his contributions position him as a leading voice shaping how we understand our psychological responses to increasingly sophisticated artificial social agents.