Giulia Vita

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About

Giulia Vita is a cognitive scientist whose research lies at the intersection of social cognition and human-robot interaction. Her work investigates how people mentally represent and process humanoid robots, probing the fundamental question of whether we perceive them as social agents or mere objects. In her highly cited 2022 paper, “Human- or object-like? Cognitive anthropomorphism of humanoid robots,” Vita employed the inversion paradigm—a classic experimental tool from face perception research—across three studies involving 302 participants. Her findings revealed that people cognitively elaborate humanoid robots in a manner more akin to objects than humans, challenging assumptions about automatic anthropomorphism. This work has garnered 28 citations and provides a rigorous, empirical foundation for understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying human-robot interaction. Vita’s contributions are pivotal for designing robots that align with human cognitive biases, informing both theoretical models of social perception and practical applications in robotics. Her research continues to shape debates on how we bridge the gap between artificial and human social worlds.