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. 2022 Aug 16;12(1):13845.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-18151-6.

Human-likeness and attribution of intentionality predict vicarious sense of agency over humanoid robot actions

Cecilia Roselli  1 , Francesca Ciardo  1 , Davide De Tommaso  1 , Agnieszka Wykowska  2
Affiliations

Human-likeness and attribution of intentionality predict vicarious sense of agency over humanoid robot actions

Cecilia Roselli et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Sense of Agency (SoA) is the feeling of being in control of one's actions and their outcomes. In a social context, people can experience a "vicarious" SoA over another human's actions; however, it is still controversial whether the same occurs in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The present study aimed at understanding whether humanoid robots may elicit vicarious SoA in humans, and whether the emergence of this phenomenon depends on the attribution of intentionality towards robots. We asked adult participants to perform an Intentional Binding (IB) task alone and with the humanoid iCub robot, reporting the time of occurrence of both self- and iCub-generated actions. Before the experiment, participants' degree of attribution of intentionality towards robots was assessed. Results showed that participants experienced vicarious SoA over iCub-generated actions. Moreover, intentionality attribution positively predicted the magnitude of vicarious SoA. In conclusion, our results highlight the importance of factors such as human-likeness and attribution of intentionality for the emergence of vicarious SoA towards robots.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental setup.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean JEs plotted as a function of Block (Baseline, Operant), separately for each Context (Solo, Social). Data points are plotted in pairs to illustrate the effects at the individual level.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean JEs in the Social Context plotted as a function of Waytz score for both Baseline and Operant block.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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