Embodied social interaction constitutes social cognition in pairs of humans: A minimalist virtual reality experiment

Scientists have traditionally limited the mechanisms of social cognition to one brain, but recent approaches claim that interaction also realizes cognitive work. Experiments under constrained virtual settings revealed that interaction dynamics implicitly guide social cognition. Here we show that embodied social interaction can be constitutive of agency detection and of experiencing anothers presence. Pairs of participants moved their "avatars" along an invisible virtual line and could make haptic contact with three identical objects, two of which embodied the others motions, but only one, the others avatar, also embodied the others contact sensor and thereby enabled responsive interaction. Co-regulated interactions were significantly correlated with identifications of the others avatar and reports of the clearest awareness of the others presence. These results challenge folk psychological notions about the boundaries of mind, but make sense from evolutionary and developmental perspectives: an extendible mind can offload cognitive work into its environment.