Minimal agency detection of embodied agents

Agency detection is studied in a simple simulated model with embodied agents. Psychological experiments such as double TV-monitor experiments and perceptual crossing show the central role of dynamic mutuality and contingency in social interactions. This paper explores the ongoing dynamical aspects of minimal agency detection in terms of the mutuality and contingency. It is investigated how the embodied agents can establish a live interaction and discriminate this from interactions from recorded motions that are identical to the live interaction but cannot react contingently. Our results suggest that the recognition of the presence of another's agency need not lie on complex cognitive individual mechanisms able to integrate past information, but rather on the situated ongoingness of the interaction process itself, on its dynamic properties, and its robustness to noise.