From embodied to socially embedded agents  Implications for interaction-aware robots
First, this article proposes a minimal definition of embodiment that can be applied across animals and artefacts. We discuss the potential contributions of this operational definition with respect to assessing and measuring the degree of embodiment in different biological and artificial systems. Second, we outline how this definition can be extended to lead to the particular notion of social embeddedness. Socially embedded agents are structurally coupled with their social environment, in that their sensorimotor activity is grounded in the social environment that the agent is surrounded by. Lastly, based on research in the social sciences on humanhuman interaction, we discuss perceptual requirements for interaction-aware robotic agentsagents whose identification and interpretation of the (social) environment is facilitated by awareness of the structure of agentagent interactions (including humans in the loop). We suggest relevant concepts and heuristics that can contribute to studies of degrees of embodiment of robots that interact with social environments. Manipulating and systematically investigating these heuristics permits variation of the degree of embodiment of such interaction-aware robots.
embodiment social embeddedness interaction-aware machines robothuman interaction