cSCAN researchers address fundamental mechanisms of social perception, social cognition, and social interaction. Research on social perception examines how humans process social signals in multiple channels, principally vision (faces, bodies) and audition (voices, language), and how the cultural, neural, and biological underpinnings of this processing affect interactions with artificial agents (e.g., social robots as well as avatars encountered in real or virtual realities). Research on social cognition addresses emotion, motivation, and self-regulation. Research on social interaction addresses language, social coordination, and culture. In their work, cSCAN researchers employ a wide variety of behavioural methods, often complemented by neuroscience methods (e.g., fMRI, MEG). Computational modeling and Big Data methods associated with social signal processing, social robotics, and communication also play central roles in cSCAN research. In general, cSCAN supports state-of-the-art research with social impact from a multidisciplinary and multimethod perspective.

cSCAN members lead a strong international research network, with editorial board membership of prominent journals (e.g., Psychological Science, JEP:General, Cognition), substantial ERC and RCUK funding, and on-going research projects with many industrial partners (e.g., Danone Research, Dimensional Imaging, Qumodo).

See a list of our highlighted publications.

Highlighted Centre Initiatives

• UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Socially Intelligent Artificial Agents will train the next generation of experts in Artificial Social Intelligence.
• The 7th Consortium of European Research on Emotion (CERE) Conference. Conference hosted by centre (April 2018).
• Teaching Reproducible Data Analysis with R. Public workshop hosted by the centre (March 2018)
• How do Online Interactions Shape our Social World? Debate hosted by centre (October 2017), with panel members Robin Dunbar (University of Oxford), Andrew Przybylski (University of Oxford), Sue Fletcher-Watson (University of Edinburgh), and Damon Centola (University of Pennsylvania).
• Face Facts: Revealing the information hidden in faces. Interactive exhibition at the Royal Society of London’s 2015 Summer Science Exhibition. (video)

Highlighted Grants

• SOCIAL, UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Socially Intelligent Artificial Agents, £4.9M, 2019 – 2027.
• Computing the face syntax of social communication. European Research Council, €1.5M, 2018 – 2023.
• From data and theory to computational models of more effective virtual human gestures, EPSRC, £435K, 2020-2023.
• The Psychology of sugary drinks: The role of consumption and reward simulations. ESRC,  £415K, 2018 – 2021.
• Mechanisms and consequences of attributing socialness to artificial agents. European Research Council, €1.8M, 2016 – 2021.
• How do humans recognise kin? European Research Council, €2.0M, 2015 – 2020.
• Do oral contraceptives alter mate preferences? European Research Council, €1.4M, 2012 – 2017