Salina Edwards
M.Sc. Neuroscience student
Salina Edwards
I am a writer, researcher, artist, and fond cherisher of coffee with a passion for uncovering the intricacies of the mind. My main areas of research include mind perception, human-AI interaction, and agency.
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I am currently a M.Sc. Neuroscience student at McMaster University, located on the traditional territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations.
Learn about my research interests by scrolling below!
mind perception
Let me ask you something: do you have a mind? (You're likely thinking yes, of course.) Well, let me ask you one more thing: do the people around you have minds? If you also answered yes, then... How do you know?
A piece of my research program is interested in how we perceive the minds of others and what modifies those perceptions. For example, people in real life are perceived as having more mind than their photographic counterparts. Interestingly, as revealed in my previous work, people in digital images (i.e., a picture on a computer) are perceived as having more mind than people in analogue images (i.e., printed photographs). McLuhan might say "the medium changes the message of the mind." What else can change your (perceived) mind?
sense of agency
Sense of agency is a fundamental human experience, referring to an individual's subjective sense of control over their own intended actions. Intriguingly, there are several neurological and psychiatric disorders are characterized by an abnormal sense of agency (i.e., feeling like one's actions are outside of their own control). For example, disruptions in agency are prominent in individual's diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, anxiety. Furthermore, individuals who experience high emotional valence (i.e., anger) and fluctuations in power are also at risk for experiencing disruptions in agency. ​
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Having a sense of agency is vital for individuals to engage in conducting actions as simple as pouring a cup of coffee to controlling deviant behaviour. The final portion of my research program explores a variety factors that can influence sense of agency, such as surveillance and stress.
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human-ai interaction
Emerging technologies have fundamentally reshaped human interaction. Given these rapid developments, we have seen the emergence of a new social category: humans and artificial intelligence. ​
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A plethora of research describes how humans can develop social bonds with agents of artificial intelligence in a variety of contexts. There are so many questions to be asked about what this emerging social category means for humans, society, and relationships as we know them today.
What is the future of human interaction?
