Observed non-humanoid robot actions induce vicarious agency when perceived as social actors, not as objects

Robots are rapidly becoming a common aspect of our physical environments, but it is unclear under what conditions they can integrate into our social world. One prerequisite of such integration may be the perception that robots are agents that act with intention. In two experiments we used a temporal binding paradigm to explore how the implicit sense of agency might be vicariously induced by observing robot actions. In two experiments wherein participants interacted with.a simple non-humanoid toy robot, we found underestimation of the temporal gap between observed robot action and outcome (i.e., temporal binding, an index of the implicit sense of agency; Experiments 1 and 2). Critically however, this was only the case if participants had engaged previously with the robot in a ‘social’ game (Experiment 2). In contrast, binding was weaker for participants who had interacted with the robot on a mechanistic basis. These results are consistent with the notion that even non-humanoid social robots can evoke an implicit sense of vicarious agency, but only in restricted social contexts.