Achievement

The ability to infer the intentions of other agents on the basis of their motion is a critical psychological faculty. Trainee Pete Pantelis examined the perceptual categories of intentional agents and actions. Displays contained autonomous, independently programmed agents moving about a 2D environment and interacting with one another. Each behaved according to its a program controlled by a small number of parameters that defined its "personality." Participants' impressions of the similarities among the behaviors of agents were assessed and modeled using multidimensional scaling in an attempt to recover the subjective mental space of the agent types. An important variable underlying this space was how the agent reacted to a nearby agent within a critical distance. Variation along this parameter affected a fundamental perceptual dimension that reflects how hostile or friendly agents appeared to be. (Pantelis and Feldman, 2012, Att. Percep. & Psychophys.)