Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Research FocusAgency in the face of error
Section snippets
Action effects and experienced agency
At the beginning of each of Sato and Yasuda's experiments, the participants acquired an arbitrary mapping between two actions (left and right button press) and two auditory consequences (high or low tone). Thus, they learned that their action consistently produced a particular auditory effect at a particular time. In the second phase, two factors were varied: the congruency of the auditory effect in relation to the acquired action-effect mapping and the temporal delay between action and effect.
Intentions, errors, and experienced agency
Another important question Sato and Yasuda addressed is to which extent the experience of agency occurs for actions that are not intended such as when one commits an error. After learning the action-tone mapping, participants performed a letter version of the Eriksen flanker task, in which participants react to a target surrounded by flankers that are associated with the same or a different response as the target [18]. This task produces high error rates when responses are speeded.
Using this
Alternative explanations
Although there is converging evidence supporting the authors' interpretation that the experience of agency is linked to internal models predicting the consequences of actions 13, 14, 19, their results could also be interpreted within a different framework. Some researchers in the field of voluntary action postulate that the sense of agency does not rely on predictive mechanisms, but on a post-hoc evaluation of performed actions [20]. In particular, Wegner [21] has proposed that the
The next step towards understanding agency
In addition to studies using explicit judgments of agency at least two further lines of research have used implicit perceptual measures. Haggard and his colleagues have demonstrated that an action and its effect are perceived as being closer in time when the consequence is intended [24]. Blakemore and collaborators have shown that the same sensation is experienced as less intense when arising from a self-performed action than when arising from an other-performed action [25]. It is not yet clear
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Cited by (21)
Self is “other”, other is “self”: poor self-other discriminability explains schizotypal twisted agency judgment
2016, Psychiatry ResearchCitation Excerpt :On the other hand, unless our own motor representation is confounded with others' though a mirror system (e.g., motor resonance, e.g., Kilner et al., 2003), other-originated sensory outcomes are not associated with that prediction, so a large mismatch should be detected. As a result, the feeling of no-large-error is the sense of agency (Asai, 2015; Knoblich and Sebanz, 2005). Empirically, as the inserted bias gets larger in action feedback, participants detect mismatch more easily and feel less agency for that feedback (Asai and Tanno, 2008, 2012).
The experience of agency in sequence production with altered auditory feedback
2012, Consciousness and CognitionCitation Excerpt :However, even in the latter case, with sensorimotor cues absent, participants felt a stronger sense of self-agency when the consequences of the experimenter’s action matched the participant’s expectations. This suggests that both motor predictions and the conditions Wegner (2002) describes affect agency to some degree (Knoblich & Sebanz, 2005). At least one study has explored the relationship between agency and AAF-like conditions.
Endogenous versus exogenous change: Change detection, self and agency
2010, Consciousness and CognitionAction observation modulates auditory perception of the consequence of others' actions
2008, Consciousness and CognitionThe "sense of agency" and its underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms
2008, Consciousness and CognitionCompatibility of Motion Facilitates Visuomotor Synchronization
2010, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance