Effect of Latency and Space Discrepancy on Sense of Agency

Abstract

The sense of agency (SoA) is an important Kansei quality in interactive design. It refers to the feeling that one is in control of his/her actions and, through them, of events in the outside world. Our living world consists of two dimensions: space and time. One perceives and operates objects in time and space. Thus, time and space are essential factors in interaction design. The objective of this study is to find how congruency of space discrepancy and latency affect the SoA while interacting an object through an interface and whether they have interaction effect. We conducted an experiment with participants to compare between varied space discrepancy and latency with respect to SoA. We used intentional binding and questionnaire to measure both implicit and explicit SoA, respectively. The result showed that both latency and congruency of space discrepancy affect the explicit part of sense of agency, while only latency affects the implicit part of sense of agency. Interaction effect was observed between latency and congruency of space discrepancy only in the explicit part of SoA. The result provided an explanation to how these two factors affect SoA. Furthermore, we proposed a standardization method for the result of intentional binding supporting that latency has similar effect on the explicit and the implicit part of SoA. That is, as latency increases, the SoA decreases.