Tools and methods to study and replicate experiments addressing human social cognition in interactive scenarios.

In the last decade scientist started bridging the traditional laboratory based experimental protocols to investigate human social cognition, with more ecological and “into the wild” protocols where we spontaneously employ our socio-cognitive mechanisms differently compared to more controlled environments, in line with the second person neuroscience approach. As this framework implies transferring 2-D paradigms to 3-D interactive environments, the risk of losing experimental control, and thus, precision in experimental replicability arises. Therefore, we propose a set of methods to investigate human social cognition in 3-D environments, with an embodied humanoid robot as an integrative tool to overcome replicability issues. To this end, we present two case studies where our methods and tools were applied and replicated across two different laboratories, namely the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova (Italy) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore. In the first case study, we present a replication of an adapted of a gaze cueing paradigm presented by Kompatsiari et al. (2022) developed to investigate the role of eye contact in joint attention. The second case study presents a replication of a paradigm presented by Marchesi et al., (2022), developed to investigate the attribution of mental states to humanoid robots. We argue that our set of methods and tools shows that complex experimental paradigms can also be transferable across Countries, to allow, for example cross-cultural comparisons, without sacrificing experimental control and resources.