Embodiment improves attention allotment for the benefit of dual task performance

Yukiko Iwasaki (1) , Benjamin Navarro (2) , Hiroyasu Iwata (1) , Gowrishankar Ganesh (2)

1 Waseda University [Tokyo, Japan]
2 IDH - Interactive Digital Humans

Many everyday tasks, like walking down a street, requires us to dual task to also avoid collisions of our swinging arms with other pedestrians. The collision avoidance is possible with ease because humans have an 'awareness' of their (embodied) limbs. But how does embodiment and awareness affect attention distribution, and consequently task performance? Here we examined this question with a dual task that required participants to perform a cued button-press (main task) with their right hand, while reacting to possible collisions by a moving object with a left 'robot' hand (secondary task). We observed that participants consistently improve main task performance when they perceived the robot hand to be embodied, compared to when they don't. Furthermore, the performance improvement correlated with the embodiment perceived by the participants. The secondary task performance could be maintained in both cases, suggesting that embodiment of a limb improves attention allotment for dual task performance with it.

Domaines: Neurosciences

Yukiko Iwasaki, Benjamin Navarro, Hiroyasu Iwata, Gowrishankar Ganesh. Embodiment improves attention allotment for the benefit of dual task performance. 2021. ⟨hal-03341908⟩