Jan Zwickel

Papers

Total Citations

261

H-Index

About

Jan Zwickel is a cognitive scientist whose research lies at the intersection of social cognition, attention, and human-robot interaction. Her most influential work, “I See What You Mean” (2012, 240 citations), explores how ascribing intentions to others—adopting the “intentional stance”—shapes attentional selection. This foundational paper demonstrates that when we perceive others as intentional agents, our visual attention is actively guided by their inferred mental states, revealing a deep link between theory of mind and perceptual processing. Zwickel’s broader contributions extend to understanding how action observation interferes with ongoing perception (2010) and using eye movements as a tool to evaluate and improve robot design (2009). Her work bridges cognitive psychology and robotics, offering insights into how humans naturally interpret and interact with both biological and artificial agents. By showing that even subtle cues of intentionality can reshape where and how we look, Zwickel has advanced our understanding of social attention and provided practical frameworks for building more intuitive, human-aware robots. Her research remains highly cited for its elegant integration of theory and application.