Investigating Joint Action by Playing Sensorimotor Games with Artificial Partners

Interpersonal coordination relies on the ability to predict a partner’s future actions and use these predictions for decision-making. Social abilities are impaired in pathologies like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and autism spectrum disorder. This study uses a robotic interface where humans play a strategic game (Stag Hunt) with artificial partners, whose behavior is based on a computational interaction model and can be adjusted to simulate different partner types. Humans adapt to the features of the artificial partners, making this setup a potential tool for assessing interaction abilities in both healthy individuals and those with cognitive impairments.