Clara Colombatto

Dr. Clara Colombatto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, where she directs the Vision and Cognition Lab. She holds an honorary lecturer position at University College London and a PhD from Yale University. Her research explores how visual perception extracts social and cognitive states from others, focusing on attentiveness, confidence, and metacognition. She investigates non-biological agents like AI and the perceptual roots of social cognition, including group dynamics and moral judgment.

Education:

• BS in Neuroscience and Philosophy, Duke University
• PhD in Psychology, Yale University
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University College London

Research Interests: Perception of attentiveness and metacognition, social group perception, AI ethics, moral judgment, and visual cognition. Her work bridges cognitive psychology, vision science, and social psychology to understand how humans perceive other minds and interact with non-human agents.

Recent Trends in Articles: Recent work emphasizes human-AI collaboration, trust in technology, and perceptual foundations of social interaction. Key themes include gaze dynamics, confidence attribution in AI, and optimal group size perception.

Grants & Collaborations: Collaborates with institutions like Princeton University, University of Oxford, and Microsoft Research. Her team includes students working on topics like robot teleoperation and moral narratives.

Labs & Teams: Leads the Vision and Cognition Lab at Waterloo, focusing on experimental psychology and computational modeling. Current projects explore metacognition in advice-taking and perceptual grouping in social interactions.