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Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios
Published on: August 4, 2023
Human social sensing is an untapped resource for computational social science
Mirta Galesic1,2,3,4, Wändi Bruine de Bruin5, Jonas Dalege6
1Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA. galesic@santafe.edu.
Abstract:
The ability to 'sense' the social environment and thereby to understand the thoughts and actions of others allows humans to fit into their social worlds, communicate and cooperate, and learn from others' experiences. Here we argue that, through the lens of computational social science, this ability can be used to advance research into human sociality. When strategically selected to represent a specific population of interest, human social sensors can help to describe and predict societal trends. In addition, their reports of how they experience their social worlds can help to build models of social dynamics that are constrained by the empirical reality of human social systems.
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