Abstract
Everyday social life rests on the ability to identify and treat appropriately the objects that belong to oneself from those that belong to other people. Disregarding ownership status - whether an object is “mine” or “yours” - leads to predictable and costly social conflicts. Given the relevance and ubiquity of object ownership, a multidisciplinary literature has extensively explored the “motivational” problem of why and when ownership is respected by others. However a more fundamental “cognitive” problem still needs to be systematically addressed: how do we understand that something is “mine” or “yours” in the first place? To fill this gap we adopt a neurocomputational and experimental approach. We hypothesize that the conceptual domain of ownership (1) is grounded in the experience of control over external objects and basic self-other discrimination processes and that (2) it develops as a byproduct of restrictions experienced during curiosity-driven exploration in physical and social environments (Byproduct Hypothesis). To formalize and test this hypothesis, we will realise three different computational architectures of increasingly cognitive complexity. Adopting intrinsically-motivated reinforcement learning guided by competence improvement, the first architecture will model the interactive origins of basic sensorimotor representations of objects (sensorimotor categorization). The second architecture will introduce a form of curiosity-driven exploration to enable a more abstract form of categorization grounded in the physical controllability of objects (control-based categorization). The third architecture will show how the presence of another agent physically interacting with the objects together with self-other discrimination processes are sufficient to support the acquisition of abstract concepts of “mine” and “yours” (ownership categorization). The models of control-based and ownership categorization will be tested in two series of behavioral experiments both in real and in virtual reality environments. To assess the spontaneous formation of different categories, participants will complete a visuotactile interaction task and a categorical perception task. Beside the wide interdisciplinary relevance of these scientific outcomes, uncovering the cognitive bases of object ownership has a broad technological, economic and social impact, from assistive robotics to the design and support of new virtual forms of social interaction in the upcoming Metaverse. > Objective (1): a neurocomputational model Architecture 1: sensorimotor categorization. Architecture 2: control-based categorization. Architecture 3: ownership categorization. Expected results. Sensorimotor categorization model: We expect to find a topological categorization of internal representations of objects in the sensorimotor component that a) reflects the distinction between the four categories with smooth boundaries between each other; b) is biased towards a very detailed definition of more controllable categories (a wide region of the internal space dedicated to them) and a very poor definition of less controllable objects (a narrow region of internal space dedicated to them). We also expect to find an increment in the reactivity, precision of movements and reproducibility of movements in response to controllable rather than uncontrollable objects. Control-based categorization model: we predict that the simulated agent manages to correctly discriminate controllable from uncontrollable objects. Ownership categorization model: we predict a diminished motor response for an object presented in a “your” setting, where action is performed independently of the simulated agent. > Objective (2): Experiments with humans in real and virtual-reality environments - Human experimental series 1: control-based categorization. Visual-tactile interaction task (PR and VR). Categorical perception task. Expected results
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Claudia Scorolli
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Filosofia
Coordinator:
CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche(Italy)
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 85.490,00
Project Duration in months: 28
Start Date:
05/10/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
