(Dis)Embodied Joint Agency in Human-Artificial Agents Interactions

The sense of self and sense of agency are two fundamental features of the human mind and deeply connected with their embodied roots. Recent technological advances led to the rapid emergence of new types of embodied interactions and joint agencies with artificial agents such as robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) characters.  While it is well established that humans readily assign human-like attributes to artificial others, less is known how the human embodiment affects human-artificial agents interactions. To address this question, we conducted a series of studies looking at the behavioural and physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between Depersonalisation (DP) experiences and joint agency in human-artificial agents interactions. DP is condition that makes people feel detached from their self and body, with atypical sense of self and agency over one’s own actions, and ensuing distressing feelings of "being a robot” or an “automatic pilot”. Indeed, we usually take for granted the embodied subjective experiences of being a self, yet the case of DP prompts the following research question:  i) do people that feel disconnected from their own bodies, feeling “as if” they are robots and automata display a higher sense of joint agency with human or rather with artificial, robotic co-agents? Our findings provide for the first time evidence that the human embodiment matters too in joint agency tasks in addition to the embodiment of the artificial others. Our results pave the way towards more human-body centred design in creating interactions with artificial others, especially when these interactions permeate our daily lives.