Sense of Agency in Joint Action – SAJA

The pursuit of our first objective engages two sets of empirical studies combining for the first time experimental paradigms inspired by game theory and paradigms used in the study of motor coordination and agency in cognitive psychology. In the first series of studies, we specifically test the role of low-level coordination processes on the sense of agency in joint action. Low-level coordination demands are varied by manipulating the fluency with which an action is selected and executed. In the second series of studies we investigate the interactions between high-level coordination processes and low-level coordination processes in a coordination task implementing situations of shared vs. divergent interests as they have been operationalized in game theory. In these two series of studies, we combine several complementary measures of agency: explicit measures (judgments of control), implicit measures (intentional binding and phyiological measures (electrodermal activity). We also test the the influence of asymmetric role distributions (pivotality, power-distribution, embodiment) on the sense of agency in joint action.
In close connection with these empirical studies, we also offer theoretical analyses of the forms taken by transformations of the sense of agency in joint action and of their implications for several debates. In particular, we investigate the relations between sense of agency and bodily awareness in joint action and the nature and role of the metacognitive processes involved in joint action. We also investigate the implications of transformations of agentive awareness in joint action for current debates on shared intentionality and its relation to individual intentionality and their implications for game-theoretical approaches to cooperation.

Our experimental data have shown: (a) a significant decrease of the sense of control (self-evaluation) in relation to reduced fluency of individual action; (2) a trend towards a decrease of the sense of joint agency when the fluency of the joint action is reduced; (3) the presence of a sense of shared (vs. individual) control when participants are in a context of joint action; (4) an increase of electrodermal activity in a condition of reduced motor fluency, that could be associated with a decrease of the sense of agency in participants.
We have also proposed a theoretical model of action inference, emphasizing its hierarchical character and showing the dependence of intention inference one the characteristics of the action scene and on the nature of the action (individual vs. joint).
We have also proposed an analysis of the relationships between different forms or prototypes of joint action, of the specific cognitive and social skills on which they depend, and of the limitations inherent in the form of shared intentionality they engage.
Finally, we have proposed an analysis of the modifications of peripersonal space and of bodily awareness associated with an extension of action capabilities through the use of tools or the participation in joint action.

In the second part of our project, we will carry out our second set of experimental studies, aimed at investigating the interactions between low-level (motor) inter-agent coordination processes and high-level (strategic) coordination processes. These studies will combine for the first time experimental paradigms inspired by game theory and paradigms used in the study of motor coordination and agency in cognitive psychology.
We will build on their results to provide detailed conceptual/theoretical analyses of (1) cooperation and the mechanisms that support the choice of cooperation solutions in situations of strategic iuncertainty, and (2) the role and mode of implication of metacognitive capacities in solving coordination and cooperation problems.

- Chambon V., Domenech P., Jacquet P.O., Barbalat G., Bouton S., Pacherie E., Koechlin E., Farrer C. (2017). Neural coding of prior expectations in hierarchical intention inference. Scientific Reports, 7(1):1278.
- de Vignemont, F. (2018). The extended body hypothesis. In Oxford handbook of 4E cognition, edited by A. Newen, L. de Bruin, S. Gallagher, Oxford University Press.
- Butterfill, S. A. & Pacherie, E. (forthcoming). Towards a blueprint for a social animal. In A. Fiebich (ed.). Minimal Cooperation and Shared Agency. Springer.
- Chambon V. (2017). «Le rôle de la fluidité cognitive dans le sens de l'agir«. In Minzoni A. & Mounoud E. (Eds.), Simplexité et modèles opérationnels, CNRS Editions.
- 12 communications, including 11 at international conferences and workshops.

By taking as our object of study the sense of agency in joint action and its cognitive underpinnings, we propose the first comprehensive and systematic investigation of a central subjective dimension of human sociality and an essential aspect of human cooperativeness.
Methodologically, our approach is strongly interdisciplinary, combining in tight fashion conceptual and theoretical analysis and behavioral experiments and analyses. It is also highly innovative, involving behavioral studies that integrate for the first time experimental paradigms inspired by game theory and paradigms used in the study of motor coordination and agency in cognitive science.
This project therefore clearly aims at expanding the frontiers of current knowledge on a key subjective dimension of social cognition. The project will promote timely new forms of interdisciplinary discussion, bringing together flourishing (but currently under-communicating) research programs on the sense of agency and on joint action and strengthening scientific interactions among researchers in philosophy, cognitive psychology and neurosciences, game-theory and experimental economics. It will also provide a unique opportunity for promising young empirically-minded philosophers or cognitive scientists to work in a strongly interdisciplinary research community and gain invaluable first-hand experience of interdisciplinary collaboration.

In keeping with this interdisciplinary spirit, the results of the proposed research will take the form of collaborative publications and high-impact articles in science, social science and interdisciplinary academic journals and presentations at international conferences.

Our research is relevant to two crucial sets of societal issues. Firstly, living in modern societies requires unprecedented amounts of cooperation and coordination among agents. Understanding how coordination processes operate, what their degrees of flexibility and their limitations and how they can foster a sense of joint agency are is an important first step towards designing more efficient modes of social interaction answering this challenge. Secondly, as the present global economic and environmental crises illustrate, the events that most strongly impact societies tend to be the result not of individual agency but of collective agency. The detrimental consequences of collective actions are all the more difficult to prevent that the sense of agency we experience for these events is diluted. Understanding how the sense of agency people experience can be transformed when they engage in collective actions is a prerequisite to understanding how a sense of collective responsibility can be grounded and can promote pro-social behavior.