138 Joint Cognitive Systems
from the point of view of outside human observers. The perception of agency (and
animacy) concerns the relationship between the behavior of a system: what can be
seen about that behavior by human observers relative to other observable
contingent events (H eider & Simmel, 1944; Bradshaw, 1997; Scholl & Tremou let,
2000). As a result, au tomated syste ms, as they increase in autonomy (varying
degrees of capability to carry out sequences of actions independent from human
input), authority (the pow er to take-over control of a process), and complex ity
(more extensive and tighter coupling), have t wo kinds of interpretations: as a
deterministic machine in hindsight and as an animate agent in context capable of
activities indepe ...