Abstract
The bodily-self, our experience of being a body, arises from the interaction of several processes. For example, embodied Sense of Agency (SoA), the feeling of controlling our body’s actions, is a fundamental facet of the bodily-self. SoA is disturbed in psychosis, with stress promoting its inception. However, there is little knowledge regarding the relationship between SoA, stress, and other facets of the bodily-self. In four experiments manipulating embodied SoA using a virtual hand (VH), we examined (1) How is embodied SoA related to other facets of the bodily-self?; and (2) How is SoA impacted by stress? We found that increased alteration of the VH significantly decreased subjective ratings of SoA and body ownership (Exp. 1), supporting the close relation between SoA and body ownership. Interoceptive accuracy and SoA were positively correlated (Exp. 3), connecting awareness to one’s actions and cardiac signals. Contrary to our expectations, SoA was not related to trait anxiety (Exp. 3), nor did induced stress impair SoA (Exp. 4). Finally, we found a negative correlation between self-reported prodromal symptoms and SoA. These results strongly support the connection between SoA and the bodily-self. Whereas, SoA was not impaired by stress, and weakly related to psychotic symptoms.
Highlights
IntroductionExperiencing one’s self as a physical entity grounded in a body is termed the ‘bodily-self’ or ‘minimal self’, emphasizing the fundamental nature of this stratum of selfhood [1,2,3,4]
For body ownership we found a significant main effect (F3,39 = 7.71, p = 0.006, η2p = 0.37; see Figure 2B) similar to that of sense of agency (SoA)
To assess if SoA and body ownership were experienced by the participants in the no alteration condition (i.e., M0), we performed a one-sample t-test examining whether M0 ratings significantly differed from the baseline rating of zero
Summary
Experiencing one’s self as a physical entity grounded in a body is termed the ‘bodily-self’ or ‘minimal self’, emphasizing the fundamental nature of this stratum of selfhood [1,2,3,4]. The bodily-self encompasses two related capacities: body ownership and sense of agency (SoA), which are typically seamlessly interwoven into our experience to such a degree that we are typically not explicitly aware of them, rather they are pre-reflective [5,6]. The identification with one’s body, relies on the integration of multisensory signals constructing a coherent representation of the self in the present moment. SoA, the feeling of being in control of one’s actions, relies on multisensory integration but incorporates internal neural efferent signals originating in the agent’s volition [10,11,12]
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