Teaching

Besides research, I have the great pleasure to teach several classes and supervise students as part of the Psychology BSc and MSc and Artificial Intelligence BSc and MSc study programmes at Utrecht University. Students interested in brains, robots and social cognition, you can read short descriptions of past students projects below. Do contact me if you are interested and want to discuss possibilities!

Lecturing:

Currently, I’m involved in the following study programmes:

  • Artificial Intelligence (MSc)
  • Kunstmatige intelligentie (BSc)
  • Psychologie (BSc)
  • Social, Health and Organisational Psychology (MSc)
  • Social and Health Psychology (MSc)

University of Glasgow 2018-2020:

  • I organised and lectured the “Socially Intelligent Artificial Technologies in Society” year 4/PGT module (2019-2020/Semester 2). This course explored society and human psychology in an era of ever-evolving technological innovations. We specifically investigated the impact of socially intelligent artificial technologies in an ever changing societal setting: How do interactions with immersive human-inspired social technologies, whether the internet, social media, smart phones, virtual reality or social robotics, (re)shape human life? We also explored how psychological research and innovation influence and change socially intelligent artificial technologies.

  • I guest lectured in the “Social Robotics year 4/PGT module”. Specically, I lectured on: “Probing the Flexibility of Human Social Cognition During Interactions with Artificial Agents”.

Ongoing Student projects and Trainees

Check Human+ for more info

Finished projects

  • Ann Hogenhuis (Liberal Arts and Sciences BSc-student), who looked at functional connectivity during real human-robot interactions using fMRI. Recently, she submitted this work as a preprint! Read it here!

  • Lukas Kraff (Kunstmatige Intelligent/Artificial Intelligence BSc-student) studied the detection of social interaction using Bayesian hierarchical and behavioural models. Check out the Gitlab repo to download the game and stimuli.

  • Geertje Hendriks (Kunstmatige Intelligent/Artificial Intelligence BSc-student) finished a literature review on social robots in elderly care settings. She compared the potential of animal-like and human-like robots in elderly care and provided a critical reflection on the current state of research. Geertje is now working as a student-assistant on the ‘grandpa, grandma, robot and I’ public engagement project (more info soon).

  • Pinar Sahin (Social, Health and Organisational Psychology MSc-student) looked at the similarities and differences in human relationships with pets, robots, and virtual assistants.

2019-2020 (University of Glasgow)

  • Anna Henschel (UoG PhD-student), whose research is on social motivation during human-robot interactions. Anna just defended her thesis with no corrections! Congratulate her! She is currently working at the Gender in Medicine Institute, Charité University Berlin.

  • Michaela Kent (MSc Brain Sciences Project and research technician) looked at the relation between Theory-of-Mind network activation and dispositional anthropomorphism. She continued this and other work as a research technician on the Bial Foundation-funded Social Gradient project. In this project we tried to map the socialness gradient in the brain during anthropomorphism and dehumanisation. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD at Western University. Her work has been published in Human Brain Mapping.

  • Rosanne Timmerman (visiting MSc-student, Neuroscience and Cognition, Utrecht University) worked on a fNIRS project on the role of the TPJ and STS in social interaction and an online study on collaboration with humans and robots in a competitive setting. Her work has been accepted at ICSR2021.

  • Dorina de Jong (visiting MSc-student) Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Groningen) looked at empathy and aits bises in human-robot teams. Dorina has just started her PhD as part of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Training Network at the IIT/University of Ferrara. This work has been published in the Journal of Cognition.

  • I also supervised students for the Level 3 Honours course (Quantitative Project and Critical Review) that completed a study on the impact of a 5-day socialising intervention on recognition of emotions expressed by a robot.

2018-2019 (University of Glasgow)

  • Katerina Manoli (MSc Research Methods) investigated how socialness is represented in the Person Perception network and Theory-of-Mind network (pilot for the Social Gradient project). Katerina will be joining the SoBA-lab at Macquarie University as a PhD student working with Rich Ramsey.

  • Isabella Gould (MSc Psychological Studies) worked on a project that mapped automatic imitation in daily life. Isabella is currently a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

  • Luca Leisten and Hanna Seelemeyer (DAAD interns) worked on the spatial registration of fNIRS optodes using photogrammetry and helped out with a first fNIRS validation study (#BOLDlight). Hanna is a MSC-student at Master student at Goethe-Universität, while Luca started her MSc at Radboud University and is currently a research assistant working with me at Utrecht University. The manual for the photogrammetry procedure can be found on Zenodo.

  • Martin Hoffman (Erasmus+ intern) worked on a date-driven method to understand long-term human-robot interaction. His work is part of the cozmo4hri project and a recent preprint (https://psyarxiv.com/fd3h2/).

  • Spencer Day (BSc Psychology) investigated reciprocity during human-robot interaction. This project was based on Mahmoodi et al. (2018).

2017-2018 (Bangor University)

  • Katie Riddoch (MSc Psychological Research), Jaydan Pratts and Simon Titone (MSc NeuroImaging) studied how socialising with a robot influenced behavioural and brain measures of empathy. This research has been published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Katie is pursuing her PhD at the University of Glasgow, while Jaydan and Simon are PhD-candidates at the University of Manchester and KU Leuven respectively.