Exploring the role of embodiment on intimacy perception in a multiparty collaborative task
This work addresses group dynamics and collaboration in multi-agent systems, but it is incremental as it focuses on experimental protocol design without presenting new methods or results.
The study investigated how different agents' embodiment affects perception and group cohesion in a collaborative board game, concluding with an outline of protocol design challenges and multi-agent system issues.
During collaborative board games, cohesion represents a key aspect to define a well functionning group. From the success of the task to the developement of interpersonal relationship, this concept covers many aspects of group dynamics. The goal of our work is to investigate the factors that impact cohesion in a group, and specifically the relevant social skills that improve collaboration between multiple entities. In this article, we focus on the role of embodiement on different aspects of an interaction. We propose an experimental protocol, based on a collected corpus of humans playing a collaborative board game, to study how different agents' embodiment affect the perception of these agents and of the group as a whole. We conclude by presenting an outline of the problematics of the conception of the protocol and of multi-agent system related challenges.