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How do we switch between “playing along” and treating robots as technical agents? We propose interaction breakdowns to help solve this “social artifact puzzle”: Breaks cause changes from fluid interaction to explicit reasoning and interaction with the raw artifact. These changes are closely linked to understanding the technical architecture and could be used to design better human–robot interaction (HRI).

The aim of the planned project is to increase the understanding how social aspects might be involved in food-restrictive behavior in anorexia nervosa (AN) – for more information see document “Theoretical_background”. To this end, a group of AN patients and healthy controls (HC) will perform two experimental paradigms during functional magnetic resonance imaging. This preregistration will focus on one of these paradigms, in which neural activations during the imagination of eating-related and -unrelated social situations will be investigated, and situations in which participants imagine to be the protagonist of the situation will be contrasted to situations in which they imagine being an observer of another person. We assume that AN patients perceive the imagination of eating in the presence of others as less pleasant than control subjects and feel more shame due to social comparison processes – because it reveals a lack of self-control and deviation from personal ideals. In contrast, when they imagine being in social situations where they only observe someone else eating, patients with AN might react with pleasure because of social comparison. To clarify that these effects are specific to situations related to eating and not due to the fact that AN patients generally find social situations less or more pleasant, we will contrast eating-related situations with other situations which are not related to eating.

The aim of the planned project is to increase the understanding how social aspects might be involved in food-restrictive behavior in anorexia nervosa (AN) – for more information see document “Theoretical_background”. To this end, a group of AN patients and healthy participants will perform two experimental paradigms during functional magnetic resonance imaging. This preregistration will focus on one of these paradigms, in which neural responses to anticipated food and non-food rewards will be examined and personal rewards will be contrasted to rewards for another person. We assume that subjective reward values mediate the neural responses to reward-related cues and that AN patients will feel less motivated to strive for food-related stimuli due to their negative appraisal which is based on reluctance to gain weight and goals like food avoidance and self-control (see theoretical background). In contrast, we assume that reward responses to stimuli signaling food rewards for another person will not altered in the same way since these are not associated with (personal) weight gain or in conflict with cognitive goals. Instead, reward responses might even be increased compared to healthy participants, indicating social comparison processes in AN and vicarious pleasure from others’ eating.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to infer other people's mental states like intentions or desires. ToM can be differentiated into affective (i.e., recognizing the feelings of another person) and cognitive (i.e., inferring the mental state of the counterpart) subcomponents. Recently, subcortical structures such as the basal ganglia (BG) have also been ascribed to the multifaceted concept ToM and most BG disorders have been reported to elicit ToM deficits. In order to assess both the correlates of affective and cognitive ToM as well as involvement of the basal ganglia, 30 healthy participants underwent event-related fMRI scanning, neuropsychological testing, and filled in questionnaires concerning different aspects of ToM and empathy. Directly contrasting affective (aff) as well as cognitive (cog) ToM to the control (phy) condition, activation was found in classical ToM regions, namely parts of the temporal lobe including the superior temporal sulcus, the supplementary motor area, and parietal structures in the right hemisphere. The contrast aff > phy yielded additional activation in the orbitofrontal cortex on the right and the cingulate cortex, the precentral and inferior frontal gyrus and the cerebellum on the left. The right BG were recruited in this contrast as well. The direct contrast aff > cog showed activation in the temporoparietal junction and the cingulate cortex on the right as well as in the left supplementary motor area. The reverse contrast cog > aff however did not yield any significant clusters. In summary, affective and cognitive ToM partly share neural correlates but can also be differentiated anatomically. Furthermore, the BG are involved in affective ToM and thus their contribution is discussed as possibly providing a motor component of simulation processes, particularly in affective ToM.