@phdthesis{Muth2023,
  author    = {Muth, Felicitas Vanessa},
  title     = {Step by step: Sense of agency for complex action-event sequences},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-30756},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-307569},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {From simply ringing a bell to preparing a five-course menu, human behavior commonly causes changes in the environment. Such episodes where an agent acts, thereby causing changes in their environment constitute the sense of agency. In this thesis four series of experi-ments elucidate how the sense of agency is represented in complex action-event sequences, thereby bridging a gap between basic cognitive research and real-life practice. It builds upon extensive research on the sense of agency in unequivocal sequences consisting of single ac-tions and distinct, predominantly auditory, outcomes. Employing implicit as well as explicit measures, the scope is opened up to multi-step sequences. The experiments show that it is worthwhile devoting more research to complex action-event sequences. With a newly introduced auditory measure (Chapter II), common phenomena such as temporal binding and a decrease in agency ratings following distorted feedback were replicated in multi-step sequences. However, diverging results between traditional implicit and explicit measures call for further inspection. Multisensory integration appears to gain more weight when multiple actions have to be performed to attain a goal leading to more accurate representations of the own actions (Chapter III). Additionally, freedom of choice (Chapter III) as well as early spatial ambiguity altered the perceived timing of outcomes, while late spatial ambi-guity (Chapter IV) and the outcome's self-relevance did not (Chapter V). The data suggests that the cognitive system is capable of representing multi-step action-event sequences implicitly and explicitly. Actions and sensory events show a temporal attraction stemming from a bias in the perception of outcomes. Explicit knowledge about causing an event-sequence facilitates neither feelings of control nor taking authorship. The results corroborate current theorizing on the un-derpinnings of temporal binding and the divergence between traditional implicit and explicit measures of the sense of agency. Promising avenues for further research include structured analyses of how much inferred causality contributes to implicit and explicit measures of agency as well as finding alternative measures to capture conceptual as well as non-conceptual facets of the agency experience with one method.},
  subject      = {Psychologie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Grundke2023,
  author    = {Grundke, Andrea},
  title     = {Head and Heart: On the Acceptability of Sophisticated Robots Based on an Enhancement of the Mind Perception Dichotomy and the Uncanny Valley of Mind},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-33015},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-330152},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {With the continuous development of artificial intelligence, there is an effort to let the expressed mind of robots resemble more and more human-like minds. However, just as the human-like appearance of robots can lead to feelings of aversion to such robots, recent research has shown that the apparent mind expressed by machines can also be responsible for their negative evaluations. This work strives to explore facets of aversion evoked by machines with human-like mind (uncanny valley of mind) within three empirical projects from a psychological point of view in different contexts, including the resulting consequences. In Manuscript \#1, the perspective of previous work in the research area is reversed and thus shows that humans feel eeriness in response to robots that can read human minds, a capability unknown from human-human interaction. In Manuscript \#2, it is explored whether empathy for a robot being harmed by a human is a way to alleviate the uncanny valley of mind. A result of this work worth highlighting is that aversion in this study did not arise from the manipulation of the robot's mental capabilities but from its attributed incompetence and failure. The results of Manuscript \#3 highlight that status threat is revealed if humans perform worse than machines in a work-relevant task requiring human-like mental capabilities, while higher status threat is linked with a higher willingness to interact, due to the machine's perceived usefulness. In sum, if explanatory variables and concrete scenarios are considered, people will react fairly positively to machines with human-like mental capabilities. As long as the machine's usefulness is palpable to people, but machines are not fully autonomous, people seem willing to interact with them, accepting aversion in favor of the expected benefits.},
  subject      = {Humanoider Roboter},
  language  = {en}
}