Brandy Bessette-Symons
Papers
2
Total Citations
95
H-Index
2
About
Brandy Bessette-Symons is a leading researcher in cognitive psychology and human-robot interaction, best known for her groundbreaking work on the Uncanny Valley effect. Her most-cited study, “Uncanny but not confusing: Multisite study of perceptual category confusion in the Uncanny Valley” (2019, 90 citations), challenges a long-standing assumption in robotics: that the eerie feeling people experience when encountering near-human android robots stems from perceptual confusion between “robot” and “human” categories. Through a rigorous multisite experimental design, Bessette-Symons demonstrated that this aversion is not driven by category ambiguity, but by other cognitive mechanisms—a finding that has reshaped how roboticists and psychologists understand user responses to humanlike agents. Her work has significant implications for designing socially acceptable robots in healthcare, education, and service industries. Beyond this landmark study, Bessette-Symons continues to explore the intersection of perception, emotion, and technology, contributing to a deeper understanding of how humans process and react to artificial beings. Her research is essential reading for anyone interested in the psychology of human-robot interaction and the future of socially intelligent machines.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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