Combining the Projective Consciousness Model and Virtual Humans for Immersive Psychological Research: A Proof-of-concept Simulating a ToM Assessment

Article Article scientifique Article Combining the Projective Consciousness Model and Virtual Humans for Immersive Psychological Research: A Proof-of-concept Simulating a ToM Assessment eng 2023-05-05 2023-05-05 author Rudrauf David 0000-0002-9621-1800 FPSE, Section of Psychology, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and Computer Science University Center, University of Geneva, Switzerland 850236 author Sergeant-Perthuis Grégoire 0000-0002-2079-3410 Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland 946172 author Tisserand Yvain 0000-0001-9027-6497 FPSE, Section of Psychology and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland 753927 Services communs du CISA (EMCO) author Monnor Teerawat 0000-0002-9221-3809 FPSE, Section of Psychology and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland 909745 Services communs du CISA (EMCO) author Durand De Gevigney Valentin 0000-0002-8714-9355 Independent Researcher, France 872660 author Belli Olivier 0000-0002-2097-2451 Evolutio, Geneva, Switzerland 691701 1-31 10.1145/3583886 2160-6455 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3583886 <p>Relating explicit psychological mechanisms and observable behaviours is a central aim of psychological and behavioural science. One of the challenges is to understand and model the role of consciousness and, in particular, its subjective perspective as an internal level of representation (including for social cognition) in the governance of behaviour. Toward this aim, we implemented the principles of the Projective Consciousness Model (PCM) into artificial agents embodied as virtual humans, extending a previous implementation of the model. Our goal was to offer a proof-of-concept, based purely on simulations, as a basis for a future methodological framework. Its overarching aim is to be able to assess hidden psychological parameters in human participants, based on a model relevant to consciousness research, in the context of experiments in virtual reality. As an illustration of the approach, we focused on simulating the role of Theory of Mind (ToM) in the choice of strategic behaviours of approach and avoidance to optimise the satisfaction of agents’ preferences. We designed a main experiment in a virtual environment that could be used with real humans, allowing us to classify behaviours as a function of order of ToM, up to the second order. We show that agents using the PCM demonstrated expected behaviours with consistent parameters of ToM in this experiment. We also show that the agents could be used to estimate correctly each other’s order of ToM. Furthermore, in a supplementary experiment, we demonstrated how the agents could simultaneously estimate order of ToM and preferences attributed to others to optimize behavioural outcomes. Future studies will empirically assess and fine tune the framework with real humans in virtual reality experiments.</p> Dewey 128.37 Dewey 150 108 Section de psychologie 71 15 Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives 0D8 false ACM transactions on interactive intelligent systems 13 2 c09b2782-2aa2-41ee-b466-0efcb86f94d2 Article (Published version) Public Article-scientifique-from-crossref.pdf 8957776 application/pdf OA OTHER 0f961c6d50841182f4d719594ffd522b6aa4ab3f10678941e1f2d288a208a7f9 openAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie Centres et instituts / Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives

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Combining the Projective Consciousness Model and Virtual Humans for Immersive Psychological Research: A Proof-of-concept Simulating a ToM Assessment	ACM transactions on interactive intelligent systems			2023	146	2,342

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