Fabiola Diana
Postdoctoral Researcher
I’m Fabi, a social neuroscientist fascinated by the invisible but powerful threads that connect us during social interactions, whether with other humans or artificial agents. I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social, Health, and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht University.
My work is at the intersection of social neuroscience and human-robot interaction. I focus on understanding how we connect with each other, and increasingly, with artificial agents, in our everyday lives. I’m particularly interested in the subtle, often unconscious ways our bodies respond during social interactions: how our pupils synchronize, our heart rates align, and how these physiological patterns influence moral behavior, such as trust, cooperation, and honesty. I’ve been fortunate to conduct research across multiple countries, such as Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan, which has really impacted how I think about the universality and diversity of human social behavior and moral decisions.
A big part of my work examines how people interact with robots and AI. Do we behave differently toward artificial agents than toward humans? Do we extend the same moral boundaries towards artificial entities? And how do cultural backgrounds shape these interactions? These questions drive my research, which combines behavioral measures, psychophysiology, and neural activity to capture what happens during real, face-to-face encounters.
With an interdisciplinary background spanning psychology, neuroscience, and robotics, I’m passionate about bridging disciplines to understand social behavior from an evolutionary perspective, looking at what humans share with other animals and how these ancient patterns play out in our modern technological world.
When I’m not in the lab, you can find me lost in a good book, carefully cleaning my minerals collection, or staying active through sports.
Fabiola Diana 