Researched Social Cognition and Trust
SPECS
Researched social cognition, trust in robots, human-machine interaction, and cognitive systems through prototypes, experiments, and academic publications.
Category / Type
Social robotics; cognitive systems; human-machine interaction; research prototyping; academic research; trust and social cognition.
Client / Venture / Internal
Research work with SPECS, the Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive, and Cognitive Systems Lab.
Project Link
https://specs-lab.com/
Context
SPECS studies and synthesizes the neuronal, psychological, and behavioral principles underlying perception, emotion, and cognition. The lab works across cognitive systems, embodied autonomous systems, computational neuroscience, human neurophysiology, and related research domains.
Lucas’s work sat at the intersection of social cognition, trust in robots, human-machine interaction, social robotics, and cognitive systems.
Wicked Problem
Trust is not a feature you can bolt onto a robot.
For robots and intelligent systems to participate in human environments, they need to be understood as social actors, not merely technical devices. People interpret agency, intention, emotion, behavior, and reliability through deeply human cognitive patterns.
The challenge was to explore how trust emerges between people and machines: how humans perceive robotic behavior, how machines can participate in social interaction, and how experiments or prototypes can reveal the conditions under which intelligent systems become legible, useful, or trusted.
Solution
Lucas contributed to research, prototyping, and experimental work around social cognition and trust in robotic systems.
The work included building prototypes, supporting PhD experiments, contributing to research workflows, and participating in publication work. The focus was not only on whether machines could perform tasks, but on how people interpret and relate to machine behavior.
This research helped bridge technical cognitive systems with human-centered questions around interaction, trust, embodiment, and social perception.
Outcome / Impact
The work contributed to research activity at SPECS and supported academic work in social robotics and human-machine interaction.
Research across social cognition, trust in robots, human-machine interaction, social robotics, and cognitive systems.
Prototype development for experimental and research contexts.
Support for PhD-level experiments.
One academic publication connected to the research trajectory.
Role / Contribution
Researcher, prototype builder, and cognitive systems collaborator.
Lucas helped build prototypes, support experiments, contribute to research outputs, and translate questions about social cognition and trust into tangible research activity.
Supporting Proof / Artifacts
SPECS Lab website: https://specs-lab.com/
SPECS alumni / previous members listing.
Research work across social cognition, trust in robots, human-machine interaction, and social robotics.
Academic publication listed on Lucas’s website.
