Embodied social interaction constitutes social cognition in pairs of humans: A minimalist virtual reality experiment
This work addresses the problem of understanding social cognition for psychologists and philosophers by showing it can be extended through interaction, though it is incremental in building on recent interaction-based approaches.
The study tackled the problem of whether social cognition is confined to individual brains by demonstrating that embodied social interaction in a virtual reality setting can constitute agency detection and the experience of another's presence. The result showed that co-regulated interactions significantly correlated with correct identifications of the other's avatar and reports of awareness, challenging traditional notions of mind boundaries.
Scientists have traditionally limited the mechanisms of social cognition to one brain, but recent approaches claim that interaction also realizes cognitive work. Experiments under constrained virtual settings revealed that interaction dynamics implicitly guide social cognition. Here we show that embodied social interaction can be constitutive of agency detection and of experiencing another`s presence. Pairs of participants moved their "avatars" along an invisible virtual line and could make haptic contact with three identical objects, two of which embodied the other`s motions, but only one, the other`s avatar, also embodied the other`s contact sensor and thereby enabled responsive interaction. Co-regulated interactions were significantly correlated with identifications of the other`s avatar and reports of the clearest awareness of the other`s presence. These results challenge folk psychological notions about the boundaries of mind, but make sense from evolutionary and developmental perspectives: an extendible mind can offload cognitive work into its environment.