Studying Human-Agent Interactions in Space Invaders

We conducted an exploratory study to investigate human-agent interactions in the context of the Space Invaders game. In the study, the participants experienced an Uncooperative and a Cooperative agent. Although cooperation was unexpected, our results suggest that the participants identified the Cooperative agent as more helpful than the Uncooperative agent, and that they were inclined to reciprocate the helping actions more to the former agent than the latter one. We discuss the possibilities of further using Space Invaders as a practical scenario to study human-agent cooperation.