Abstract
The sense of agency refers to the feeling that one is controlling events through one’s own behavior. This study examined how task performance and the delay of events influence one’s sense of agency during continuous action accompanied by a goal. The participants were instructed to direct a moving dot into a square as quickly as possible by pressing the left and right keys on a keyboard to control the direction in which the dot traveled. The interval between the key press and response of the dot (i.e., direction change) was manipulated to vary task difficulty. Moreover, in the assisted condition, the computer ignored participants’ erroneous commands, resulting in improved task performance but a weaker association between the participants’ commands and actual movements of the dot relative to the condition in which all of the participants’ commands were executed (i.e., self-control condition). The results showed that participants’ sense of agency increased with better performance in the assisted condition relative to the self-control condition, even though a large proportion of their commands were not executed. We concluded that, when the action-feedback association was uncertain, cognitive inference was more dominant relative to the process of comparing predicted and perceived information in the judgment of agency.
Highlights
In present-day life, people use machines to make many tasks, such as driving cars and using computers, easier and simpler to perform
The second type of process refers to a higher-level cognitive inference—we named this goal-directed inference—that if the outcome of people’s actions meets their expectations with respect to the goal, they infer that events are under their control
The present study examined the influence of task performance and the action-feedback association on the sense of agency during continuous actions accompanied by a goal
Summary
In present-day life, people use machines to make many tasks, such as driving cars and using computers, easier and simpler to perform. If an individual’s feeling is one of control (i.e., “I am controlling it”) while operating a machine, this helps the individual to explain and make predictions regarding feedback from the machine and take subsequent action. This subjective feeling of controlling events through one’s own behavior refers to the sense of agency. How does the sense of agency arise, and which factors influence this subjective feeling? These questions have been the focus of much research, in which there has been agreement that both internal motoric signals (i.e., action selection) and external cues (e.g., feedback or situational cues) contribute to the sense of agency [1]. How does the sense of agency arise, and which factors influence this subjective feeling? These questions have been the focus of much research, in which there has been agreement that both internal motoric signals (i.e., action selection) and external cues (e.g., feedback or situational cues) contribute to the sense of agency [1].
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