Electrophysiological correlates of agency judgements

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Electrophysiological correlates of agency judgements Ivan Nenchev1*, Simoen Kühn1, 2, 3, Jürgen Gallinat1, Patrick Haggard3, Marcel Brass2 and Martin Voss1 1 Charité University Medicine, Germany 2 Ghent University, Belgium 3 University College London, United Kingdom Humans possess a conscious sense of agency, which is a central aspect of voluntary action and refers to the experience that oneself is the agent of one’s own actions. We explored the neural correlates of explicit agency judgements using event-related potentials (ERP). We tested whether differential electrophysiological responses precede later explicit agency judgements. Participants first learned that certain actions (left or right button presses) resulted in certain consequences in the environment (high or low pitch tones). In the experiment, subjects were presented with different action effects: In the congruent tone condition, each button press evoked the same tone that had followed each button press in the learning session. By contrast, in the incongruent tone condition, a tone that differed from the predicted tone followed the button press. The onset of the tone was varied between 100ms, 300ms and 600ms. After each trial, participants had to judge if they produced the action–effect or the experimenter did. A comparison of congruent and incongruent tones revealed a reduction of the N1 component of the ERPs for congruent tones, showing that participants learned the mapping and thus attenuated expected action effects. To explore electrophysiological correlates that may predict later agency judgements, we divided identical congruent trials with 300ms tone delay according to the judgement whether an identical tone was self- or externally-produced. We found attenuation within the P300 component for tones that were judged to be generated by oneself compared to those judged to be generated externally. This demonstrates that agency judgements explicit agency judgements incorporate first-step agency processes are not purely reconstructive and post-hoc evaluations. Keywords: Awareness, EEG Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Consciousness and Awareness Citation: Nenchev I, Kühn S, Gallinat J, Haggard P, Brass M and Voss M (2011). Electrophysiological correlates of agency judgements. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00549 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Ivan Nenchev, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany, ivan.nenchev@charite.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Ivan Nenchev Simoen Kühn Jürgen Gallinat Patrick Haggard Marcel Brass Martin Voss Google Ivan Nenchev Simoen Kühn Jürgen Gallinat Patrick Haggard Marcel Brass Martin Voss Google Scholar Ivan Nenchev Simoen Kühn Jürgen Gallinat Patrick Haggard Marcel Brass Martin Voss PubMed Ivan Nenchev Simoen Kühn Jürgen Gallinat Patrick Haggard Marcel Brass Martin Voss Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.