Traditional psychology and neuroscience can often struggle to fully understand how humans work. Synthetic psychology offers a complementary approach, taking theories and testing them out in robotic models to see if human-like behaviour can be recreated. This can lead to new insights which might not be gained from looking solely at a biological system.

Sheffield Robotics is an interdisciplinary group which spans across departments, faculties and universities. Synthetic psychology is an example of the kind of work that can take place at the intersection of specialisms. In this video, Professor Tony Prescott explains some of the projects taking place within the group including a humanoid robot called the iCub and a whiskered robot inspired by rats.