In situated actions the sense of control is an important concept not just to adjust actions to outside disturbances but also to adjust own movements regarding the environment to continue goal directed behavior. The sense of control can be related to the external sense of agency (according to Grünbaum, et al. , 2023) which refers to the feeling of controlling events outside of the body, such as objects, other people, and the environment. It involves the attribution of causality and intentionality over external events, which allows us to make sense of our surroundings and interact with them in a meaningful way.
For understanding the processes and affects this sense of control has on interactive behavior we developed a cognitive architecture that includes top-down cognitive and bottom-up sensorimotor processes and is able to interact with an environment. This approach is tested in a simulation-game where unpredictable disturbances take place the agent (natural or artificial) needs to cope with. The results of the artificial and human agents are compared and discussed. The question is how different levels of sense of control arise during the game and what cognitive processes are influenced in coping with the environment and task. Furthermore, it will be discussed how this mechanism can be used for a better human AI collaboration.