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- M. Synofzik, G. Vosgerau & A. Newen (2008). Beyond the Comparator Model: A Multi-Factorial Two-Step Account of Agency. Consciousness and Cognition 17 (1):219-239.There is an increasing amount of empirical work investigating the sense of agency, i.e. the registration that we are the initiators of our own actions. Many studies try to relate the sense of agency to an internal feed-forward mechanism, called the ‘‘comparator model’’. In this paper, we draw a sharp distinction between a non-conceptual level of feeling of agency and a conceptual level of judgement of agency. By analyzing recent empirical studies, we show that the comparator model is not able to explain either. Rather, we argue for a two-step account: a multifactorial weighting process of different agency indicators accounts for the feeling of agency, which is, in a second step, further processed by conceptual modules to form an attribution judgement. This new framework is then applied to disruptions of agency in schizophrenia, for which the comparator model also fails. Two further extensions are discussed: We show that the comparator model can neither be extended to account for the sense of ownership (which also has to be differentiated into a feeling and a judgement of ownership) nor for the sense of agency for thoughts. Our framework, however, is able to provide a unified account for the sense of agency for both actions and thoughts.Reading list | Discuss | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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Recent significant research in a number of disciplines centers around the concept of the sense of agency. Because many of these studies cut across disciplinary lines there is good reason to seek a clear consensus on what ‘sense of agency’ means. In this paper I indicate some complexities that this consensus might have to deal with. I also highlight an important phenomenological distinction that needs to be considered in any discussion of the sense of agency, regardless of how it gets defined, and I offer some critical comments on some current models tied to the notion that the sense of agency has an ambiguous phenomenology.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The now growing literature on the content and sources of the phenomenology of first-person agency highlights the multi-faceted character of the phenomenology of agency and makes it clear that the experience of agency includes many other experiences as components. This paper examines the possible relations between these components of our experience of acting and the processes involved in action specification and action control.
After a brief discussion of our awareness of our goals and means of action, it will focus on the sense of agency for a given action, understood as the sense the agent has that he or she is the author of that action. I argue that the sense of agency can be analyzed as a compound
of more basic experiences, including the experience of intentional causation, the sense of initiation and the sense of control. I further argue that the sense of control may itself be analysed into a number of more specific, partially dissociable experiences.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The sense of agency, that is the sense that one is the agent of one’s bodily actions, is one component of our self-consciousness. Recently, Wegner and colleagues have developed a model of the causal history of this sense. Their model takes it that the sense of agency is elicited for an action when one infers that one or other of one’s mental states caused that action. In their terms, the sense of agency is elicited by the inference to apparent mental state causation. Here, I argue that this model is inconsistent with data from developmental psychology that suggests children can identify the agent behind an action without being capable of understanding the relationship between their intentions and actions. Furthermore, I argue that this model is inconsistent with the preserved sense of agency in autism. In general, the problem is that there are cases where subjects can experience themselves as the agent behind their actions despite lacking the resources to make the inference to apparent mental state causation.
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| | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The comparator-model, originally developed to explain motor action, has recently been invoked to explain several aspects of the self. However, in the first place it may not be used to explain a basic self-world distinction because it presupposes one. Our alternative account is based on specific systematic covariation between action and perception. Secondly, the comparator model cannot explain the feeling of ownership of thoughts. We argue—contra Frith and Campbell—that thoughts are not motor processes and therefore cannot be described by the comparator-model. Rather, thoughts can be the triggering cause (intention) for actions. An alternative framework for the explanation of thought insertion in schizophrenics is presented.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: interscience.wiley.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: interscience.wiley.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... In this paper we examine whether the sense of agency represents an obstacle to the project of naturalizing the mental. On the basis of a thought experiment we suggest that the sense of agency is not an epiphenomenon. We also examine Frith's attempt to explain in functionalist terms the sense of agency through the comparator and metarepresentational mechanisms. Through a variety of arguments we try to show that explanation by recourse to these mechanisms is inadequate. We conclude by suggesting that one possible reason for the failure of the functionalist approaches is that they begin from the assumption that thought is a form a of willed action.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The neurocognitive structure of the acting self has recently been widely studied, yet is still perplexing and remains an often confounded issue in cognitive neuroscience, psychopathology and philosophy. We provide a new systematic account of two of its main features, the sense of agency and the sense of ownership, demonstrating that although both features appear as phenomenally uniform, they each in fact are complex crossmodal phenomena of largely heterogeneous functional and (self-)representational levels. These levels can be arranged within a gradually evolving, onto- and phylogenetically plausible framework which proceeds from basic non-conceptual sensorimotor processes to more complex conceptual
and meta-representational processes of agency and ownership, respectively. In particular, three fundamental levels of agency and ownership processing have to be distinguished: The level of feeling, thinking and social interaction. This naturalistic account will not only allow to ‘‘ground the self in action”, but also provide an empirically testable taxonomy for cognitive neuroscience and a new tool for disentangling agency and ownership disturbances in psychopathology (e.g. alien hand, anarchic hand, anosognosia for one’s own hemiparesis).
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: linkinghub.elsevier.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: linkinghub.elsevier.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... This paper contrasts two approaches to agentive self-awareness: a high-level, narrative-based account, and a low-level comparator-based account. We argue that an agent's narrative self-conception has a role to play in explaining their agentive judgments, but that agentive experiences are explained by low-level comparator mechanisms that are grounded in the very machinery responsible for action-production.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: springerlink.com jstor.org jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: springerlink.com jstor.org jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Glenn Carruthers presents a very detailed and thorough critique of our multi-factorial twostep account of agency to the effect that it would not succeed in being superior and more general as the comparator model (CM). This critique gives us the opportunity to refine some of our points and to make the overall argument clearer. As Carruthers notes, “This move [the distinction between a feeling of agency (FoA) and a judgment of agency (JoA)] usefully limits the explanatory target of the CM to FoA”. This is exactly right in our view but contrasts with a lot of views present in the empirical literature which neglect this important difference. As a paradigmatic example see the claim by Jeannerod that “agency judgements made by the subject are based on the state of the comparator (Jeannerod, 1999, pp. 17-18) (for further experimental conflation of feeling and judgement of agency see e.g.Daprati et al., 1997; Farrer et al., 2003b). Thus, with this point we are not only fighting straw men but show severe limits of the explanatory force of the comparator model.
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| | Scholar | More options ... Synofzik, Vosgerau, and Newen (2008) offer a powerful explanation of the sense of agency. To argue for their model they attempt to show that one of the standard models (the comparator model) fails to explain the sense of agency and that their model offers a more general account than is aimed at by the standard model. Here I offer comment on both parts of this argument. I offer an alternative reading of some of the data they use to argue against the comparator model. I argue that contrary to Synofzik, Vosgerau and Newen’s reading the case of G.L. supports rather than contradicts the comparator model. Next I suggest how the comparator model can differentiate failures of action attribution in patients suffering
parietal lobe lesions and delusions of alien control. I also argue that the apparently unexpected phenomenon of ‘‘hyperassociation” is predicted by the comparator model. Finally I suggest that as it stands Synofzik, Vosgerau and Newen’s model is not well specified enough to explain deficits in the sense of agency associated with delusions of thought
insertion. Thus they have not met their second argumentative burden of showing how their model is more general than the comparator model.
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| | Other links: dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... I compare Frith and colleagues’ influential comparator account of how the sense of agency is elicited to the multifactorial weighting model advocated by Synofzik and colleagues. I defend the comparator model from the common objection that the actual sensory consequences of action are not needed to elicit the sense of agency. I examine the comparator model’s ability to explain the performance of healthy subjects and those suffering from delusions of alien control on various self-attribution tasks. It transpires that the comparator model needs case-by-case adjustment to deal with problematic data. In response to this, the multifactorial weighting model of Synofzik and colleagues is introduced. Although this model is incomplete, it is more naturally constrained by the cases that are problematic for the comparator model. However, this model may be untestable. I conclude that currently the comparator model approach has stronger support than the multifactorial weighting model approach.
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| | Other links: linkinghub.elsevier.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Discussion of M. Synofzik , G. Vosgerau & A. Newen, Beyond the comparator model: A multi-factorial two-step account of agency
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