Colin Holbrook

Colin Holbrook is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Merced, affiliated with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts and the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences. His research focuses on decision-making under threat, social determinants of trust, and human-AI interaction during crises.

• University of California, Merced
• Cognitive and Information Sciences Department
• School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts

Research interests span evolutionary psychology, group prejudice, moral psychology, and human-robot interaction dynamics. Recent work investigates overtrust in AI recommendations, physical anthropomorphism effects, and cross-cultural pandemic behavior. Publications reveal consistent patterns in threat perception, social cognition, and robot trust calibration.

Collaborative efforts include partnerships with institutions like the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution & Culture, the AHRC Culture and the Mind Project, and the Institute of Cognition & Culture. His lab develops virtual reality experiments for robot-guided emergency scenarios while exploring cognitive adaptations through transcranial magnetic stimulation and behavioral studies across diverse populations.