FMRI study of young adults with autism interacting with a humanoid robot

The belief that artificial agents are useful interaction partners in cognitive therapies of social disorders such as autism fuels an increasing number of research projects involving the developments of robots and computer avatars. Yet, for an appropriate use of these new tools, it is necessary to understand how perception of and interaction with artificial agents differ from natural agents, both in normally developed adults and in patients with disorders of social cognition. Here we investigated the neural bases of social interactions with a human or with a humanoid robot using fMRI. During interaction, participants were playing a computerized version of the game chifumi (stone-paper-scissors), while believing they were interacting ‘live’ either with a fellow human (Intentional agent, Int), a humanoid robot endowed with an artificial intelligence (Artificial agent, Art), or a random number generator running on a laptop (Rnd). The belief was built both with an extensive briefing before the actual experiment, including a live interaction with the human and humanoid robot opponents, and with videos of the opponent, presented as live but actually recorded prior to the experiment, that preceded and followed each series of 5 games played against one opponent in a block. Results indicate that the brain network found when interacting with an active opponent (Art & Int vs Rnd) was more activated when interacting with the human than with the robot agent, implying that interacting with a human is more engaging than interacting with an artificial agent. Areas involved in social interactions in the posterior temporal sulcus were activated when controls, but not high-functioning autistic patients patients, interacted with a fellow human.