Dr. Anna CIAUNICA
I’m a Principal Investigator working on self-consciousness, embodiment and social interactions in Humans and Artificial Agents
I’m currently based at the Centre for Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, Portugal; and at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, the UK – the Social Neuroscience Group.
I specifically aim to investigate:
- what is self-consciousness and how it develops in relation to our body and our physical and social environment
- the effect of interacting with humans versus artificial others (robots, Virtual Reality characters and Artificial Intelligence) on the human mind and body.
To this end, I use conceptual and psychophysiological methods, together with behavioural testing and advanced neuroimaging techniques (fNIRS) to map changes in behaviour, phenomenology, and brain when people interact with humans versus artificial others in natural and in virtual environments.
I’m currently PI on three interdisciplinary projects looking at multisensory processing of the self and other in people that feel detached from their self, body and the world.