Joanna Korman

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Joanna Korman’s research sits at the intersection of social cognition and human-robot interaction, exploring how people perceive and attribute mental states to both human and artificial agents. Her 2014 paper, “The social life of cognition” (23 citations), established her foundational interest in how social contexts shape cognitive processes. Her most notable work, “Beyond Programming: Can Robots’ Norm-Violating Actions Elicit Mental State Attributions?” (2019, 10 citations), investigates a compelling question: whether social perceivers interpret a robot’s norm-violating behavior—like breaking social rules—as diagnostic of its internal mental states, much as they do with humans. Using stimulus videos of a DRC-HUBO robot, Korman demonstrates that norm violations can trigger mental state attributions to machines, challenging assumptions about the boundaries of social cognition. This work has significant implications for designing more intuitive human-robot interactions and understanding how people anthropomorphize technology. Though early in her career, Korman’s research is gaining traction among scholars in cognitive science and robotics, offering fresh insights into the social dynamics of human-machine relationships.