Ralf F. A. Cox

While AI tools continue to evolve and are increasingly incorporated in creative domains as tools and companions, humans are becoming less accurate at distinguishing AI-generated outputs from human-generated ones in artistic domains such as visual art, poetry, and creative writing. In this context, understanding the human-centred aspects of human-AI interaction has become as important as assessing computational ability. This systematic review investigates human-centred perspectives on how AI outputs are differentiated from human-like creations in artistic domains through Turing Test-like experimental paradigms. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we searched IEEE Xplore, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science for empirical studies published between 2014 and 2025. From 3,461 records, 31 studies were included after screening and snowballing. We applied thematic analysis to examine methods, metrics, evaluation practices, problematizations, research gaps, and future directions. Risk of bias was assessed using the JBI Checklist, and certainty of evidence was evaluated through GRADE-CerQual. Our thematic analysis revealed several key metrics, including authorship detection, emotional reaction, aesthetic judgment, creativity, agency, empathy, attention, liking/preference, technical qualities, and value judgments. Most studies relied on self-reports and behavioral measures, with limited mixed-methods work. Gaps remain with respect to embodiment and experience, and with human-AI co-creativity. Our review underscores the importance of mixed-methods, human-centred approaches for advancing ethical and collaborative AI systems.

The current increase in the use of GenAI has raised concerns about human involvement, AIs acceptability and detectability. Although current studies stressed the importance of human involvement, most studies employing Turing Test-like approaches focus on this aspect within the human-in-the-loop (HITL) versus human-out-of-the-loop (HOTL) frameworks. In this study we go beyond the HITL vs. HOTL dichotomy and hypothesize that the outputs that are generated with different levels of interaction evoke different responses along with the information regarding the human and AI involvement in the making. We use behavioral methods and self-reports to measure the participants' reactions towards artworks that are generated with three different levels of interaction with an AI tool. We focused on different aspects of experiencing artworks through various metrics including liking, perceived beauty, meaning, creativity, self-relevance and empathy towards the author and the emotional valence with respect to the human involvement in the making the and the information that is disclosed about it. Our analyses revealed a quadratic-shaped effect on the ways humans experience artworks generated via different levels of interaction; where the outputs generated with highest interaction are similar to the human-only/no interaction and outputs that are generated with low and moderate levels of interaction are similar to one another. Disclosing the information regarding the human involvement also had an impact on the emotional valence. Our study has implications for understanding the level of acceptance of human and AI involvement in the co-creative process and contributes to the growing literature on developing ethical human-centred AI systems.

This chapter argues that cognitive development is fundamentally embodied and embedded, emerging from continuous interactions among brain, body, and environment within a multiscale complex adaptive system. Drawing on coordination dynamics, ecological psychology, and complex systems theory, the authors propose that cognition consists of softly assembled, interaction-dominant coordinative structures that self-organize over time. Developmental change is explained through processes such as affordance-based learning, perceptual-motor coupling, and cascading interactions across domains (e.g., motor, language, and social development). The chapter emphasizes methodological approaches that capture temporal variability and nonlinear dynamics, including time-series analysis and dynamical modeling, as essential for understanding developmental processes. It challenges representational accounts by showing that many cognitive phenomena—including language, agency, and goal-directed action—can be understood as emergent properties of organism–environment coupling rather than internal representations. Finally, the embodied and embedded perspective provides a framework for understanding cognitive developmental disorders as disruptions in the formation and coordination of these structures, highlighting the importance of environmental scaffolding, degeneracy, and rhythmic support in intervention. Overall, the chapter advances a view of cognitive development as an emergent, context-sensitive, and dynamically organized process.

The aim of this study was to contribute to our understanding of embodied art experiences. We were interested in the emerging relationship between artwork, on the one hand, and one's bodily movements and associated embodied affective states on the other. Concretely, postural control of 46 participants looking at a diverse set of 21 20th-century abstract paintings was analysed. Also, we explored the relation between postural control, emotional states of being moved and aesthetic appraisal. Results did not reveal differences in postural control between the paintings. However, differences in variability, dynamic stability, complexity and intermittency of postural sway were found, when comparing subsets of high-motion and low-motion paintings and between subclasses of abstract painting styles. Emotional states of being moved and aesthetic appraisal were associated with postural control, both across paintings and across people in several ways. Together these findings provide empirical evidence for an embodied art experience.

We studied how personality differences and conversation topics predict interpersonal speech coordination, leading/following dynamics, and nonverbal interactional dominance in dyadic conversations. In a laboratory, 100 undergraduate students (50 same-gender dyads) had a 15-min conversation following three topics (introduction/self-disclosure/argumentation). Their speech coordination and turn-taking (speech/silence) dynamics were assessed through nonlinear time-series analyses: Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA), Diagonal Cross-Recurrence Profiles (DCRP), and Anisotropic-CRQA. From the time series, we extracted five variables to operationalize speech coordination (global and at lag-zero), leading-following dynamics, and asymmetries in the interacting partners’ nonverbal interactional dominance. Interaction appraisals were also assessed. Associations between personality traits Extraversion/Agreeableness, speech coordination, and nonverbal interactional dominance were tested using mixed-effects models. Speech coordination and nonverbal interactional dominance differed across conversational topics and peaked during argumentative conversations. Extraversion was associated with increased speech coordination, and nonverbal interactional dominance, especially during the argumentative conversation. During a self-disclosure conversation, Extraversion concordance was associated with more symmetry in turn-taking dynamics. Speech coordination was generally associated with positive post-conversational appraisals such as wanting to meet in the future or liking the conversation partner, especially in extroverted individuals, whereas introverts seemed to value less swift dynamics. High Agreeableness predicted less speech coordination during argumentative conversations, and increased speech coordination (at lag-zero) predicted reduced perceived naturality in agreeable individuals. This may suggest a trade-off between maintaining swift speech dynamics and the natural flow of conversation for individuals high in Agreeableness.

The aim of this study was to contribute to our understanding of embodied art experiences. We were interested in the emerging relationship between an artwork, on the one hand, and one’s bodily movements and associated embodied affective states on the other. Concretely, postural control of 46 participants looking at a diverse set of 21 20th-century abstract paintings was analysed. Also, we explored the relation between postural control, emotional states of being moved and aesthetic appraisal. Results did not reveal differences in postural control between the paintings. However, differences in variability, dynamic stability, complexity and intermittency of postural sway was found, when comparing subsets of high-motion and low-motion paintings and between subclasses of abstract painting styles. Emotional states of being moved and aesthetic appraisal were associated with postural control, both across paintings and across people in several ways. Together these findings provide empirical evidence for an embodied art experience.

Art is ubiquitous in our lives, and its experience and understanding are deeply emotional. Dewey (1934) suggested that all human experience, including art experiences, emerges from active engagement with the environment. In this view, affect and interpretation are interconnected processes that unfold together. To examine the integration of these processes, this interdisciplinary study used a multi-method approach. Eighteen dyads of adult participants took part in the study. They were instructed to each bring an art object that was meaningful to them. During the experiment participants engaged in an audio-visually recorded, semi-structured conversation, reflecting on both art objects. They also answered pre- and post-questionnaires on their emotions. The sense-making process was coded in terms of four strategies, namely: perception, imagination, conceptualisation, and analysis (van Heusden, 2015). Affect in sense-making was measured through self-reported valence and arousal of emotions, and sentiment analysis of the conversation. The results showed that dyadic interactions led to significant changes, at the group level, in participants’ self-reported affect toward the other’s art object. An Exploratory Graph Analysis revealed unique weighted networks of sentiment for each strategy. Additionally, a Multinomial Log-linear Model demonstrated that affect and strategies work in tandem during the sense-making process, to predict perceived affect.