Kevin Zish

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About

Kevin Zish is an emerging researcher whose work sits at the intersection of human-robot interaction, social cognition, and trust. His primary focus has been on understanding how humans perceive agency in robots and AI characters — a question that has grown increasingly urgent as intelligent systems become embedded in everyday life. Zish's most significant contribution to the field is his development of rigorous, validated measurement tools for perceived agency, addressing a critical gap in human-robot interaction research where no standardized methods previously existed. His 2024 paper, "The Perception of Agency," has already accumulated 23 citations, signaling strong community interest in this foundational work. Building on this, his scale reduction study applies Rasch modeling to produce more efficient measurement instruments, making it easier for other researchers to incorporate perceived agency assessments into their own work. Most recently, Zish has expanded his inquiry to explore how perceived agency shapes trust in robots, connecting his measurement work to broader questions of human-robot relationships. Taken together, his research lays important groundwork for designing robots that are better understood — and more meaningfully trusted — by the people who interact with them.