Abstract
Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the feeling of controlling one’s own actions, and the experience of controlling external events with one’s actions. The present study examined the effect of strength of intentional effort on SoA. We manipulated the strength of intentional effort using three types of buttons that differed in the amount of force required to depress them. We used a self-attribution task as an explicit measure of SoA. The results indicate that strength of intentional effort enhanced self-attribution when action-effect congruency was unreliable. We concluded that intentional effort importantly affects the integration of multiple cues affecting explicit judgments of agency when the causal relationship action and effect was unreliable.
Highlights
When we intend and take actions, a subjective feeling that we have caused those actions and their effects usually arises
The comparator model suggests that internal predictions of sensory feedback are generated from an efference copy of a motor signal, and are compared with actual sensory feedback: Sense of agency (SoA) arises if the copy and the feedback match, and is inhibited if they do not (Frith et al, 2000)
Cue integration theory proposes that SoA is generated from the integration of multiple internal and external cues, whose weightings are determined by their availability and reliability (Moore and Fletcher, 2012; Synofzik et al, 2013)
Summary
When we intend and take actions, a subjective feeling that we have caused those actions and their effects usually arises. The comparator model suggests that internal predictions of sensory feedback are generated from an efference copy of a motor signal, and are compared with actual sensory feedback: SoA arises if the copy and the feedback match, and is inhibited if they do not (Frith et al, 2000). Recent studies have suggested that SoA is determined by internal forwarding mechanisms, and by an integrative process involving both internal and external cues. Internal cues are mental states (e.g., motor signals, priming, beliefs, knowledge, effort, and reward expectation); in contrast, external cues are perceived information (e.g., effect, contextual information, and actual reward). Cue integration theory proposes that SoA is generated from the integration of multiple internal and external cues, whose weightings are determined by their availability and reliability (Moore and Fletcher, 2012; Synofzik et al, 2013)
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