Papers
4
Total Citations
209
H-Index
3
About
Bruno Nazarian is a pioneering cognitive neuroscientist whose work sits at the intersection of social neuroscience and artificial intelligence. His primary research investigates the neural mechanisms underlying human social interaction, with a particular focus on how our brains distinguish between engaging with fellow humans versus artificial agents. Nazarian’s most influential work, an fMRI study on how we perceive machine thinking (128 citations), demonstrated that brain regions involved in mentalizing—the ability to infer others’ mental states—may not be exclusively reserved for human interaction. He further advanced this field by developing novel fMRI paradigms that directly compare real-time human-human interaction with human-robot interaction, using conversational robots as controlled experimental stimuli. His innovative approach to objectifying social competence through neurophysiological measurements has opened new avenues for evaluating artificial agents. By recording whole-brain activity during naturalistic conversations, Nazarian has provided objective, neural-level evidence for what makes social interactions feel authentic. His work is foundational for researchers in social cognition, human-robot interaction, and the neuroscience of AI, offering critical insights into how our brains navigate an increasingly hybrid social world.
Research Focus
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