The bodily appearance of a virtual partner affects the activity of the action observation and action monitoring systems in a minimally interactive task

Abstract

SummaryOne pending question in social neuroscience is whether interpersonal interactions are processed differently by the brain depending on the bodily characteristics of the interactor, i.e., their physical appearance. To address this issue, we engaged participants in a minimally interactive task with an avatar either showing bodily features or not while recording their brain activity using Electroencephalography (EEG) in order to investigate indices of action observation and action monitoring processing. Multivariate results showed that bodily compared to non-bodily appearance modulated parieto-occipital neural patterns throughout the entire duration of the observed movement and that, importantly, such patterns differ from the ones related to initial shape processing. Furthermore, among the electrocortical indices of action monitoring, only the early observational Positivity (oPe) was responsive to the bodily appearance of the observed agent under the specific task requirement to predict the partner movement. Taken together, these findings broaden the understanding of how bodily appearance shapes the spatiotemporal processing of an interactor’s movements. This holds particular relevance in our modern society, where human-virtual agent interactions are rapidly becoming ubiquitous.