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The potential for robots to support education is being increasingly studied and rapidly realised. However, most research evaluating education robots has neglected to examine the fundamental features that make them more or less effective, given the needs and expectations of learners. This study explored how children’s perceptions, expectations and experiences are shaped by aesthetic and functional features during interactions with different robot ‘reading buddies’. We collected a range of quantitative and qualitative measures of subjective experience before and after children read a book with one of three different robots. An inductive thematic analysis revealed that robots have the potential offer children an engaging and non-judgemental social context to promote reading engagement. This was supported by children’s perceptions of robots as being intelligent enough to read, listen and comprehend the story, particularly when they had the capacity to talk. A key challenge in the use of robots for this purpose was the unpredictable nature of robot behaviour, which remains difficult to perfectly control and time using either human operators or autonomous algorithms. Consequently, some children found the robots’ responses distracting. We provide recommendations for future research seeking to position seemingly sentient and intelligent robots as an assistive tool within and beyond education settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watching other people move elicits engagement of a collection of sensorimotor brain regions collectively termed the Action Observation Network (AON). An extensive literature documents more robust AON responses when observing or executing familiar compared to unfamiliar actions, as well as a positive correlation between amplitude of AON response and an observer's familiarity with an observed or executed movement. On the other hand, emerging evidence shows patterns of AON activity counter to these findings, whereby in some circumstances, unfamiliar actions lead to greater AON engagement than familiar actions. In an attempt to reconcile these conflicting findings, some have proposed that the relationship between AON response amplitude and action familiarity is nonlinear in nature. In the present study, we used an elaborate guitar training intervention to probe the relationship between movement familiarity and AON engagement during action execution and action observation tasks. Participants underwent fMRI scanning while executing one set of guitar sequences with a scanner-compatible bass guitar and observing a second set of sequences. Participants then acquired further physical practice or observational experience with half of these stimuli outside the scanner across 3 days. Participants then returned for an identical scanning session, wherein they executed and observed equal numbers of familiar (trained) and unfamiliar (untrained) guitar sequences. Via region of interest analyses, we extracted activity within AON regions engaged during both scanning sessions, and then fit linear, quadratic and cubic regression models to these data. The data best support the cubic regression models, suggesting that the response profile within key sensorimotor brain regions associated with the AON respond to action familiarity in a nonlinear manner. Moreover, by probing the subjective nature of the prediction error signal, we show results consistent with a predictive coding account of AON engagement during action observation and execution that also takes into account effects of changes in neural efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Less than two decades after its inception, the burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics continues to grow in interest and momentum. Despite the biological and social importance of the human body and the attention people pay to its appearance in daily life, only recently has neuroaesthetic inquiry turned its attention to questions concerning the aesthetic appraisal of the human body. We review evidence illustrating that the complexity of aesthetic experience is reflected by dynamic interplay between brain systems involved in reward, perceptual and motor processing, with a focus on aesthetic perception involving the human body. We then evaluate work demonstrating how these systems are modulated by beholders’ expertise or familiarity. Finally, we discuss seminal studies revealing the plasticity of behavioural and neural responses to beauty after perceptual and motor training. This research highlights the rich potential for neuroaesthetic inquiry to extend beyond its typical realm of the fine arts to address important questions regarding the relationship between embodiment, aesthetics and performing arts. We conclude by considering some of the criticisms and limitations of neuroaesthetics, and highlight several outstanding issues for future inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Dance is a rich source of material for researchers interested in the integration of movement and cognition. The multiple aspects of embodied cognition involved in performing and perceiving dance have inspired scientists to use dance as a means for studying motor control, expertise, and action-perception links. The aim of this review is to present basic research on cognitive and neural processes implicated in the execution, expression, and observation of dance, and to bring into relief contemporary issues and open research questions. The review addresses six topics: 1) dancers'' exemplary motor control, in terms of postural control, equilibrium maintenance, and stabilization; 2) how dancers'' timing and on-line synchronization are influenced by attention demands and motor experience; 3) the critical roles played by sequence learning and memory; 4) how dancers make strategic use of visual and motor imagery; 5) the insights into the neural coupling between action and perception yielded through exploration of the brain architecture mediating dance observation; and 6) a neuroesthetics perspective that sheds new light on the way audiences perceive and evaluate dance expression. Current and emerging issues are presented regarding future directions that will facilitate the ongoing dialog between science and dance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The social motivation theory proposes that individuals naturally orient their attention to the social world. Research has documented the rewarding value of social stimuli, such as biological motion, to typically developed individuals. Here, we used complementary eye tracking measures to investigate how social motion cues affect attention and arousal. Specifically, we examined whether viewing the human body moving naturally versus mechanically leads to greater attentional engagement and changes in autonomic arousal (as assessed by pupil size measures). Participants completed an attentional disengagement task in two independent experiments, while pupillary responses were recorded. We found that natural, human-like motion produced greater increases in attention and arousal than mechanical motion, whether the moving agent was human or not. These findings contribute an important piece to our understanding of social motivation by demonstrating that human motion is a key social stimulus that engages visual attention and induces autonomic arousal in the viewer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning a new motor skill typically requires converting actions observed from a third-person perspective into fluid motor commands executed from a first-person perspective. In the present study, we test the hypothesis that during motor learning, the ability to discriminate between actions that have been observed and actions that have been executed is associated with learning aptitude, as assessed by a general measure of physical performance. Using a multi-day dance-training paradigm with a group of dance-naïve participants, we investigated whether actions that had been regularly observed could be discriminated from similar actions that had been physically practised over the course of three days, or a further set of similar actions that remained untrained. Training gains and performance scores at test were correlated with participants' ability to discriminate between observed and practised actions, suggesting that an individual's ability to differentiate between visual versus visuomotor action encoding is associated with general motor learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceiving art is known to elicit motor cortex activation in an observer's brain. This motor activation has often been attributed to a covert approach response associated with the emotional valence of an art piece (emotional reaction hypothesis). However, recent accounts have proposed that aesthetic experiences could be grounded in the motor simulation of actions required to produce an art piece and of the sensorimotor states embedded in its subject (embodied aesthetic hypothesis). Here, we aimed to test these two hypotheses by assessing whether motor facilitation during artwork perception mirrors emotional or motor simulation processes. To this aim, we capitalized on single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation revealing a two-stage motor coding of emotional body postures: an early, non-specific activation related to emotion processing and a later action-specific activation reflecting motor simulation. We asked art-naïve individuals to rate how much they liked a series of pointillist and brushstroke canvases; photographs of artistic gardens served as control natural stimuli. After an early (150 ms) or a later (300 ms) post-stimulus delay, motor evoked potentials were recorded from wrist-extensor and finger muscles that were more involved in brushstroke- and pointillist-like painting, respectively. Results showed that observing the two canvas styles did not elicit differential motor activation in the early time window for either muscle, not supporting the emotional reaction hypothesis. However, in support of the embodied aesthetic hypothesis, we found in the later time window greater motor activation responses to brushstroke than pointillist canvases for the wrist-extensor, but not for the finger muscle. Furthermore, this muscle-selective facilitation was associated with lower liking ratings of brushstroke canvases and with greater empathy dispositions. These findings support the claim that simulation of the painter's movements is crucial for aesthetic experience, by documenting a link between motor simulation, dispositional empathy, and subjective appreciation in artwork perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain regions associated with the processing of tangible rewards (such as money, food, or sex) are also involved in anticipating social rewards and avoiding social punishment. To date, studies investigating the neural underpinnings of social reward have presented feedback via static or dynamic displays of faces to participants. However, research demonstrates that participants find another type of social stimulus, namely, biological motion, rewarding as well, and exert effort to engage with this type of stimulus. Here we examine whether feedback presented via body gestures in the absence of facial cues also acts as a rewarding stimulus and recruits reward-related brain regions. To achieve this, we investigated the neural underpinnings of anticipating social reward and avoiding social disapproval presented via gestures alone, using a social incentive delay task. As predicted, the anticipation of social reward and avoidance of social disapproval engaged reward-related brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens, in a manner similar to previous studies' reports of feedback presented via faces and money. This study provides the first evidence that human body motion alone engages brain regions associated with reward processing in a similar manner to other social (i.e. faces) and non-social (i.e. money) rewards. The findings advance our understanding of social motivation in human perception and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether in performing arts, sporting, or everyday contexts, when we watch others move, we tend to enjoy bodies moving in synchrony. Our enjoyment of body movements is further enhanced by our own prior experience with performing those movements, or our 'embodied experience'. The relationships between movement synchrony and enjoyment, as well as embodied experience and movement enjoyment, are well known. The interaction between enjoyment of movements, synchrony, and embodiment is less well understood, and may be central for developing new approaches for enriching social interaction. To examine the interplay between movement enjoyment, synchrony, and embodiment, we asked participants to copy another person's movements as accurately as possible, thereby gaining embodied experience of movement sequences. Participants then viewed other dyads performing the same or different sequences synchronously, and we assessed participants' recognition of having performed these sequences, as well as their enjoyment of each movement sequence. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure cortical activation over frontotemporal sensorimotor regions while participants performed and viewed movements. We found that enjoyment was greatest when participants had mirrored the sequence and recognised it, suggesting that awareness of embodiment may be central to enjoyment of synchronous movements. Exploratory analyses of relationships between cortical activation and enjoyment and recognition implicated the sensorimotor cortices, which subserve action observation and aesthetic processing. These findings hold implications for clinical research and therapies seeking to foster successful social interaction., (© 2024 The Author(s). Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

The process of synchronizing our body movements with others is known to enhance rapport, affect, and prosociality. Furthermore, emerging evidence suggests that synchronizing activities may enhance cognitive performance. Unknown, by contrast, is the extent to which people's individual traits and experiences influence their ability to achieve and maintain movement synchrony with another person, which is key for unlocking the social and affective benefits of movement synchrony. Here, we take a dyad-centered approach to gain a deeper understanding of the role of embodiment in achieving and maintaining movement synchrony. Using existing data, we explored the relationship between body competence and body perception scores at the level of the dyad, and the dyad's movement synchrony and complexity while playing a 2.5-min movement mirroring game. The data revealed that dyadic body competence scores positively correlate with movement synchrony, but not complexity, and that dyadic body perception scores are not associated with movement synchrony or complexity. Movement synchrony was greater when the more experienced member of the dyad was responsible for copying movements. Finally, movement synchrony and complexity were stable across the duration of the mirror game. These findings show that movement synchrony is sensitive to the composition of the dyad involved, specifically the dyad's embodiment, illuminating the value of dyadic approaches to understanding body movements in social contexts., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Moffat, Roos, Casale and Cross.)

We sought to replicate and expand previous work showing that the more human-like a robot appears, the more willing people are to attribute mind-like capabilities and socially engage with it. Forty-two participants played games against a human, a humanoid robot, a mechanoid robot, and a computer algorithm while undergoing functional neuroimaging. We confirmed that the more human-like the agent, the more participants attributed a mind to them. However, exploratory analyses revealed that the perceived socialness of an agent appeared to be as, if not more, important for mind attribution. Our findings suggest top-down knowledge cues may be equally or possibly more influential than bottom-up stimulus cues when exploring mind attribution in non-human agents. While further work is now required to test this hypothesis directly, these preliminary findings hold important implications for robotic design and to understand and test the flexibility of human social cognition when people engage with artificial agents., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024 The Author(s).)

While evidence abounds that motor synchrony is a powerful form of 'social glue' for those involved, we have yet to understand how observers perceive motor synchrony: can observers estimate the degree of synchrony accurately? Is synchrony aesthetically pleasing? In two preregistered experiments (n = 161 each), we assess how accurately observers can estimate the degree of synchrony in dyads playing the mirror game, and how much observers enjoy watching these movements. We further assess whether accuracy and enjoyment are influenced by individual differences in self-reported embodied expertise (ability to reproduce movements, body awareness, body competence), psychosocial resources (extraversion, self-esteem), or social competencies (empathy, autistic traits), while objectively controlling for the degree of measured synchrony and complexity. The data revealed that observers' estimated synchrony with poor accuracy, showing a tendency to underestimate the level of synchrony. Accuracy for low synchrony improved with increasing body competence, while accuracy for high synchrony improved with increasing autistic traits. Observers' enjoyment of dyadic movements correlated positively with the degree of measured synchrony, the predictability of the movements, and the observer's empathy. Furthermore, very low enjoyment was associated with increased body perception. Our findings indicate that accuracy in perceiving synchrony is closely linked to embodiment, while aesthetic evaluations of action hinge on individual differences., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

While still relatively rare, longitudinal hyperscanning studies are exceptionally valuable for documenting changes in inter-brain synchrony, which may in turn underpin how behaviors develop and evolve in social settings. The generalizability and ecological validity of this experimental approach hinges on the selected imaging technique being mobile-a requirement met by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). fNIRS has most frequently been used to examine the development of inter-brain synchrony and behavior in child-parent dyads. In this position paper, we contend that dedicating attention to longitudinal and intergenerational hyperscanning stands to benefit the fields of social and cognitive neuroscience more broadly. We argue that this approach is particularly relevant for understanding the neural mechanisms underpinning intergenerational social dynamics, and potentially for benchmarking progress in psychological and social interventions, many of which are situated in intergenerational contexts. In line with our position, we highlight areas of intergenerational research that stand to be enhanced by longitudinal hyperscanning with mobile devices, describe challenges that may arise from measuring across generations in the real world, and offer potential solutions., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Moffat, Casale and Cross.)

Clark and Fischer's dismissal of extant human-robot interaction research approaches limits opportunities to understand major variables shaping people's engagement with social robots. Instead, this endeavour categorically requires multidisciplinary approaches. We refute the assumption that people cannot (correctly or incorrectly) represent robots as autonomous social agents. This contradicts available empirical evidence, and will become increasingly tenuous as robot automation improves.

Clark and Fischer's depiction hypothesis is based on examples of western mimetic art. Yet social robots do not depict social interactions, but instead perform them. Similarly, dance and performance art do not rely on depiction. Kinematics and expressivity are better predictors of dance aesthetics and of effective social interactions. In this way, social robots are more like dancers than actors.

The ability to exchange affective cues with others plays a key role in our ability to create and maintain meaningful social relationships. We express our emotions through a variety of socially salient cues, including facial expressions, the voice, and body movement. While significant advances have been made in our understanding of verbal and facial communication, to date, understanding of the role played by human body movement in our social interactions remains incomplete. To this end, here we describe the creation and validation of a new set of emotionally expressive whole-body dance movement stimuli, named the Motion Capture Norming (McNorm) Library, which was designed to reconcile a number of limitations associated with previous movement stimuli. This library comprises a series of point-light representations of a dancer's movements, which were performed to communicate to observers neutrality, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. Based on results from two validation experiments, participants could reliably discriminate the intended emotion expressed in the clips in this stimulus set, with accuracy rates up to 60% (chance = 20%). We further explored the impact of dance experience and trait empathy on emotion recognition and found that neither significantly impacted emotion discrimination. As all materials for presenting and analysing this movement library are openly available, we hope this resource will aid other researchers in further exploration of affective communication expressed by human bodily movement., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Is artificial intelligence (AI) changing our culture or creating its own? With advancements in AI and machine learning, artistic creativity is moving to a brave new world of possibility and complexity, while at the same time posing challenging questions, such as what defines something as art , what is the role of human creativity in an automated world, and do we evaluate artificial art in the same way as art made by humans? Across two pre-registered and statistically powered experiments we shed light on the nature of aesthetic responses toward computer-generated art by investigating observer prejudices against computer-generated dance choreography, and the impact of expertise and pre-conceived beliefs about the origin of artistic creation. Our results provide substantive evidence that an explicit bias exists among dance experts against computer-generated choreography. The mere belief about a dance work's origin biases aesthetic responses toward artworks among both dance experts and dance naïve participants. The implications of the current study serve to inform several disciplines across the arts and sciences including but not limited to empirical aesthetics, artificial intelligence, engineering, robotics, and social cognition and neuroscience. Along with physical form and content of artificial agents and art productions, the viewers' knowledge and attitudes toward artistic AI and artificial agents will need to be taken into consideration for effective human-computer/human-AI interactions., (© 2023 The Authors.)

The study explores the impact of robots' emotional displays on people's tendency to cooperate with a robot opponent in prisoner's dilemma games. Participants played iterated prisoner's dilemma games with a non-expressive robot (as a measure of cooperative baseline), followed by an angry, and a sad robot, in turn. Based on the Emotion as Social Information model, we expected participants with higher cooperative predispositions to cooperate less when a robot displayed anger, and cooperate more when the robot displayed sadness. Contrarily, according to this model, participants with lower cooperative predispositions should cooperate more with an angry robot and less with a sad robot. The results of 60 participants failed to support the predictions. Only the participants' cooperative predispositions significantly predicted their cooperative tendencies during gameplay. Participants who cooperated more in the baseline measure also cooperated more with the robots displaying sadness and anger. In exploratory analyses, we found that participants who accurately recognised the robots' sad and angry displays tended to cooperate less with them overall. The study highlights the impact of personal factors in human-robot cooperation, and how these factors might surpass the influence of bottom-up emotional displays by the robots in the present experimental scenario.

Is art appreciation universal? Previous evidence suggests a general preference for representational art over abstract art, and a tendency to like art originating from one's own culture more than another culture (an ingroup bias), modulated by art expertise. However, claims about universality are difficult given that most research has focused on Western populations. Across two pre-registered and statistically powered experiments, we explore the role of culture and art expertise in the aesthetic evaluation of Indian and Western paintings and dance depicting both abstract and representational content, by inviting expert and art-naïve Indian and Western participants to rate stimuli on beauty and liking. Results suggest an ingroup bias (for dance) and a preference for representational art (for paintings) exists, both modulated by art expertise. As predicted, the ingroup bias was present only in art-naïve participants, and the preference for representational art was lower in art experts, but this modulation was present only in Western participants. The current findings have two main implications: (1) they inform and constrain understanding of universality of aesthetic appreciation, cautioning against generalising models of empirical aesthetics to non-western populations and across art forms, (2) they highlight the importance of art experience as a medium to counter prejudices., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Do people ascribe intentions to humanoid robots as they would to humans or non-human-like animated objects? In six experiments, we compared people's ability to extract non-mentalistic (i.e., where an agent is looking) and mentalistic (i.e., what an agent is looking at; what an agent is going to do) information from gaze and directional cues performed by humans, human-like robots, and a non-human-like object. People were faster to infer the mental content of human agents compared to robotic agents. Furthermore, although the absence of differences in control conditions rules out the use of non-mentalizing strategies, the human-like appearance of non-human agents may engage mentalizing processes to solve the task. Overall, results suggest that human-like robotic actions may be processed differently from humans' and objects' behavior. These findings inform our understanding of the relevance of an object's physical features in triggering mentalizing abilities and its relevance for human-robot interaction., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2022 The Authors.)

Resonance, a powerful and pervasive phenomenon, appears to play a major role in human interactions. This article investigates the relationship between the physical mechanism of resonance and the human experience of resonance, and considers possibilities for enhancing the experience of resonance within human-robot interactions. We first introduce resonance as a widespread cultural and scientific metaphor. Then, we review the nature of "sympathetic resonance" as a physical mechanism. Following this introduction, the remainder of the article is organized in two parts. In part one, we review the role of resonance (including synchronization and rhythmic entrainment) in human cognition and social interactions. Then, in part two, we review resonance-related phenomena in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). These two reviews serve as ground for the introduction of a design strategy and combinatorial design space for shaping resonant interactions with robots and AI. We conclude by posing hypotheses and research questions for future empirical studies and discuss a range of ethical and aesthetic issues associated with resonance in human-robot interactions., Competing Interests: TM was employed by the company Intheon Labs. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Lomas, Lin, Dikker, Forster, Lupetti, Huisman, Habekost, Beardow, Pandey, Ahmad, Miyapuram, Mullen, Cooper, van der Maden and Cross.)

As robots advance from the pages and screens of science fiction into our homes, hospitals, and schools, they are poised to take on increasingly social roles. Consequently, the need to understand the mechanisms supporting human-machine interactions is becoming increasingly pressing. We introduce a framework for studying the cognitive and brain mechanisms that support human-machine interactions, leveraging advances made in cognitive neuroscience to link different levels of description with relevant theory and methods. We highlight unique features that make this endeavour particularly challenging (and rewarding) for brain and behavioural scientists. Overall, the framework offers a way to study the cognitive science of human-machine interactions that respects the diversity of social machines, individuals' expectations and experiences, and the structure and function of multiple cognitive and brain systems., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Purpose of Review: We provide an outlook on the definitions, laboratory research, and applications of social robots, with an aim to understand what makes a robot social-in the eyes of science and the general public., Recent Findings: Social robots demonstrate their potential when deployed within contexts appropriate to their form and functions. Some examples include companions for the elderly and cognitively impaired individuals, robots within educational settings, and as tools to support cognitive and behavioural change interventions., Summary: Science fiction has inspired us to conceive of a future with autonomous robots helping with every aspect of our daily lives, although the robots we are familiar with through film and literature remain a vision of the distant future. While there are still miles to go before robots become a regular feature within our social spaces, rapid progress in social robotics research, aided by the social sciences, is helping to move us closer to this reality., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) 2021.)

Humans have a remarkable ability to learn by watching others, whether learning to tie an elaborate knot or play the piano. However, the mechanisms that translate visual input into motor skill execution remain unclear. It has been proposed that common cognitive and neural mechanisms underpin learning motor skills by physical and observational practice. Here we provide a novel test of the common mechanism hypothesis by testing the extent to which certain individual differences predict observational as well as physical learning. Participants (N = 92 per group) either physically practiced a five-element key-press sequence or watched videos of similar sequences before physically performing trained and untrained sequences in a test phase. We also measured cognitive abilities across participants that have previously been associated with rates of learning, including working memory and fluid intelligence. Our findings show that individual differences in working memory and fluid intelligence predict improvements in dissociable aspects of motor learning following physical practice, but not observational practice. Working memory predicts general learning gains from pre- to post-test that generalise to untrained sequences, whereas fluid intelligence predicts sequence-specific gains that are tied to trained sequences. However, neither working memory nor fluid intelligence predict training gains following observational learning. Therefore, these results suggest limits to the shared mechanism hypothesis of physical and observational learning. Indeed, models of observational learning need updating to reflect the extent to which such learning is based on shared as well as distinct processes compared to physical learning. We suggest that such differences could reflect the more intentional nature of learning during physical compared to observational practice, which relies to a greater extent on higher-order cognitive resources such as working memory and fluid intelligence., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

To what extent can humans form social relationships with robots? In the present study, we combined functional neuroimaging with a robot socializing intervention to probe the flexibility of empathy, a core component of social relationships, towards robots. Twenty-six individuals underwent identical fMRI sessions before and after being issued a social robot to take home and interact with over the course of a week. While undergoing fMRI, participants observed videos of a human actor or a robot experiencing pain or pleasure in response to electrical stimulation. Repetition suppression of activity in the pain network, a collection of brain regions associated with empathy and emotional responding, was measured to test whether socializing with a social robot leads to greater overlap in neural mechanisms when observing human and robotic agents experiencing pain or pleasure. In contrast to our hypothesis, functional region-of-interest analyses revealed no change in neural overlap for agents after the socializing intervention. Similarly, no increase in activation when observing a robot experiencing pain emerged post-socializing. Whole-brain analysis showed that, before the socializing intervention, superior parietal and early visual regions are sensitive to novel agents, while after socializing, medial temporal regions show agent sensitivity. A region of the inferior parietal lobule was sensitive to novel emotions, but only during the pre-socializing scan session. Together, these findings suggest that a short socialization intervention with a social robot does not lead to discernible differences in empathy towards the robot, as measured by behavioural or brain responses. We discuss the extent to which long-term socialization with robots might shape social cognitive processes and ultimately our relationships with these machines. This article is part of the theme issue 'From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human-robot interaction'.

Amidst the fourth industrial revolution, social robots are resolutely moving from fiction to reality. With sophisticated artificial agents becoming ever more ubiquitous in daily life, researchers across different fields are grappling with the questions concerning how humans perceive and interact with these agents and the extent to which the human brain incorporates intelligent machines into our social milieu. This theme issue surveys and discusses the latest findings, current challenges and future directions in neuroscience- and psychology-inspired human-robot interaction (HRI). Critical questions are explored from a transdisciplinary perspective centred around four core topics in HRI: technical solutions for HRI, development and learning for HRI, robots as a tool to study social cognition, and moral and ethical implications of HRI. Integrating findings from diverse but complementary research fields, including social and cognitive neurosciences, psychology, artificial intelligence and robotics, the contributions showcase ways in which research from disciplines spanning biological sciences, social sciences and technology deepen our understanding of the potential and limits of robotic agents in human social life. This article is part of the theme issue 'From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human-robot interaction'.

Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of attributing socialness to artificial agents has important implications for how we can use technology to lead more productive and fulfilling lives. Here, we integrate recent findings on the factors that shape behavioral and brain mechanisms that support social interactions between humans and artificial agents. We review how visual features of an agent, as well as knowledge factors within the human observer, shape attributions across dimensions of socialness. We explore how anthropomorphism and dehumanization further influence how we perceive and interact with artificial agents. Based on these findings, we argue that the cognitive reconstruction within the human observer is likely to be far more crucial in shaping our interactions with artificial agents than previously thought, while the artificial agent's visual features are possibly of lesser importance. We combine these findings to provide an integrative theoretical account based on the "like me" hypothesis, and discuss the key role played by the Theory-of-Mind network, especially the temporal parietal junction, in the shift from mechanistic to social attributions. We conclude by highlighting outstanding questions on the impact of long-term interactions with artificial agents on the behavioral and brain mechanisms of attributing socialness to these agents., (© 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.)

The Social Motivation Theory posits that a reduced sensitivity to the value of social stimuli, specifically faces, can account for social impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Research has demonstrated that typically developing (TD) individuals preferentially orient towards another type of salient social stimulus, namely biological motion. Individuals with ASD, however, do not show this preference. While the reward value of faces to both TD and ASD individuals has been well-established, the extent to which individuals from these populations also find human motion to be rewarding remains poorly understood. The present study investigated the value assigned to biological motion by TD participants in an effort task, and further examined whether these values differed among individuals with more autistic traits. The results suggest that TD participants value natural human motion more than rigid, machine-like motion or non-human control motion, but this preference is attenuated among individuals reporting more autistic traits. This study provides the first evidence to suggest that individuals with more autistic traits find a broader conceptualisation of social stimuli less rewarding compared to individuals with fewer autistic traits. By quantifying the social reward value of human motion, the present findings contribute an important piece to our understanding of social motivation in individuals with and without social impairments., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Studies investigating human motor learning and movement perception have shown that similar sensorimotor brain regions are engaged when we observe or perform action sequences. However, the way these networks enable translation of complex observed actions into motor commands-such as in the context of dance-remains poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that the ability to encode specific visuospatial and kinematic movement properties encountered via different routes of sensorimotor experience may be an integral component of action learning throughout development. Using a video game-based dance training paradigm, we demonstrate that patterns of voxel activity in visual and sensorimotor brain regions when perceiving movements following training are related to the sensory modalities through which these movements were encountered during whole-body dance training. Compared to adolescents, young adults in this study demonstrated more distinctive patterns of voxel activity in visual cortices in relation to different types of sensorimotor experience. This finding suggests that cortical maturity might influence the extent to which prior sensorimotor experiences shape brain activity when watching others in action, and potentially impact how we acquire new motor skills., (© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Understanding how action perception, embodiment, and emotion interact is essential for advancing knowledge about how we perceive and interact with each other in a social world. One tool that has proved particularly useful in the past decade for exploring the relationship between perception, action, and affect is dance. Dance is, in its essence, a rich and multisensory art form that can be used to help answer not only basic questions about social cognition but also questions concerning how aging shapes the relationship between action perception, and the role played by affect, emotion, and aesthetics in social perception. In the present study, we used a 1-week physical and visual dance training paradigm to instill varying degrees of sensorimotor experience among non-dancers from three distinct age groups (early adolescents, young adults, and older adults). Our aim was to begin to build an understanding of how aging influences the relationship between action embodiment and affective (or aesthetic) value, at both brain and behavioral levels. On balance, our results point toward a similar positive effect of sensorimotor training on aesthetic evaluations across the life span on a behavioral level, but to rather different neural substrates supporting implicit aesthetic judgment of dance movements at different life stages. Taken together, the present study contributes valuable first insights into the relationship between sensorimotor experience and affective evaluations across ages, and underscores the utility of dance as a stimulus and training intervention for addressing key questions relevant to human neuroscience as well as the arts and humanities., (© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Although robots are becoming an ever-growing presence in society, we do not hold the same expectations for robots as we do for humans, nor do we treat them the same. As such, the ability to recognize cues to human animacy is fundamental for guiding social interactions. We review literature that demonstrates cortical networks associated with person perception, action observation and mentalizing are sensitive to human animacy information. In addition, we show that most prior research has explored stimulus properties of artificial agents (humanness of appearance or motion), with less investigation into knowledge cues (whether an agent is believed to have human or artificial origins). Therefore, currently little is known about the relationship between stimulus and knowledge cues to human animacy in terms of cognitive and brain mechanisms. Using fMRI, an elaborate belief manipulation, and human and robot avatars, we found that knowledge cues to human animacy modulate engagement of person perception and mentalizing networks, while stimulus cues to human animacy had less impact on social brain networks. These findings demonstrate that self-other similarities are not only grounded in physical features but are also shaped by prior knowledge. More broadly, as artificial agents fulfil increasingly social roles, a challenge for roboticists will be to manage the impact of pre-conceived beliefs while optimizing human-like design., (© 2015 The Authors.)

The field of neuroaesthetics attracts attention from neuroscientists and artists interested in the neural underpinnings of esthetic experience. Though less studied than the neuroaesthetics of visual art, dance neuroaesthetics is a particularly rich subfield to explore, as it is informed not only by research on the neurobiology of aesthetics, but also by an extensive literature on how action experience shapes perception. Moreover, it is ideally suited to explore the embodied simulation account of esthetic experience, which posits that activation within sensorimotor areas of the brain, known as the action observation network (AON), is a critical element of the esthetic response. In the present study, we address how observers' esthetic evaluation of dance is related to their perceived physical ability to reproduce the movements they watch. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while evaluating how much they liked and how well they thought they could physically replicate a range of dance movements performed by professional ballet dancers. We used parametric analyses to evaluate brain regions that tracked with degree of liking and perceived physical ability. The findings reveal strongest activation of occipitotemporal and parietal portions of the AON when participants view movements they rate as both esthetically pleasing and difficult to reproduce. As such, these findings begin to illuminate how the embodied simulation account of esthetic experience might apply to watching dance, and provide preliminary evidence as to why some people find enjoyment in an evening at the ballet.

Abstract Downing and Peelen argue for a clear distinction between body and identity representation, with the former performed by EBA and FBA, and the latter performed elsewhere in the brain. Under a predictive coding account, we argue that this separation is unnecessary: Representing bodies is part of representing identity. While neurons in EBA and FBA may only code for body shape and posture, we propose that they are a part of a reciprocally connected cortical network that functions to minimize prediction error when making identity inferences. We propose a novel way to test the hypothesis that EBA and FBA are critically involved in person identification.