Research Plan - How gaze is deployed in visual target choice and how we identify if like-wise choices are human- or computer-generated when observing and interacting

Sense of Agency is the feeling of responsibility for actions and their effects. Most agency studies are non-social, but social agency has been shown to be a distinct construct. For example, temporal action-effect contiguity is required for agency to arise in non-social, but not social contexts (Pfeiffer et al., 2012). Most social agency paradigms employ deception in delivering action-effects: responses are arbitrarily computer-generated. This explorative study will investigate how people deploy gaze in visual target choice and how they identify others doing the same. Participants will a) choose a target from a set, b) observe likewise responses and judge whether said responses are human- or computer-generated, and c) make the same judgements when interacting: participant target choice is followed by the other’s choice. Results will show (a) to what degree our own gaze behaviour serves as expectation towards others’, (b) how social interaction changes our gaze behaviour and perception of others’, (c) a way towards more ecologically valid social stimuli by investigating which latencies/choices people produce in a target choice task. Analyses will focus on whether own prior gaze (a), depends on temporal contiguity or target location or (b) congruency of response to one’s own, and (c) influences agency judgements. Pfeiffer, U. J., Schilbach, L., Jording, M., Timmermans, B., Bente, G., & Vogeley, K. (2012). Eyes on the mind: Investigating the influence of gaze dynamics on the perception of others in real-time social interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 3(DEC). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00537