Experience Of Agency Research Articles

The Interplay Between Affective Processing and Sense of Agency During Action Regulation: A Review.

Sense of agency is the feeling of being in control of one's actions and their perceivable effects. Most previous research identified cognitive or sensory determinants of agency experience. However, it has been proposed that sense of agency is also bound to the processing of affective information. For example, during goal-directed actions or instrumental learning we often rely on positive feedback (e.g., rewards) or negative feedback (e.g., error messages) to determine our level of control over the current task. Nevertheless, we still lack a scientific model which adequately explains the relation between affective processing and sense of agency. In this article, we review current empirical findings on how affective information modulates agency experience, and, conversely, how sense of agency changes the processing of affective action outcomes. Furthermore, we discuss in how far agency-related changes in affective processing might influence the ability to enact cognitive control and action regulation during goal-directed behavior. A preliminary model is presented for describing the interplay between sense of agency, affective processing, and action regulation. We propose that affective processing could play a role in mediating the influence between subjective sense of agency and the objective ability to regulate one's behavior. Thus, determining the interrelation between affective processing and sense of agency will help us to understand the potential mechanistic basis of agency experience, as well as its functional significance for goal-directed behavior.

Gender differences in user perception of usability and performance of online travel agency websites

The success of online travel business largely depends on the usability of online travel agency websites, and, hence, the need to rigorously evaluate such websites. Gender-a key variable that explains a website's usage behavior (i.e., acceptance) and gratification from Internet use (i.e., purpose)-may influence the usability requirements of the design of online travel agency websites. This empirical study examines the usability of existing online travel agency websites in terms of gender, focusing on both user perception and performance. The findings show that women have more usability needs than men. The two gender groups have different expectations of different usability features as well. We argue that these findings can improve the understanding of gender differences in user behavior in terms of usability. Developers can thus increase the quality of experience of travel agency websites by improving the websites' flexibility and user satisfaction.

Agency, global responsibility, and the speculations of ordinary life

ABSTRACT There is an abiding scepticism in normative theory that individual responsibility for global injustice lies outside commonsense moral thought because it is not grounded in an intuitive conception of human agency. Despite the grim realities of injustice in an interconnected world, this scepticism holds that human beings cannot properly internalise a nonrestrictive view of responsibility because it cuts against their experience of agency in the world. Against this view, this article argues that individual responsibility for the realisation of global justice is supported by a pervasive, and socio-politically influenced, feature of the phenomenology of agency: moral imagination. Moral imagination connects actions which are within the domain of an ordinary life to larger projects of social and political change. Since there is no compelling reason for the scope of those projects to be restricted, there is an accessible understanding and experience of the phenomenology of agency which grounds individual global responsibility in the real world. I call this a dynamic phenomenology of agency.

Administrative structures of higher education institutions - connection with the experience of professional agency of teaching staff

ABSTRACT In educational organizations, the teaching staff has traditionally had a lot of influence on the content of their work and the pedagogy. Within the last two decades, changes in educational organizations can be defined as the shift from this administrative loose coupling toward tight, more managerial coupling. This study utilizes a qualitatively driven mixed-method approach and seeks to determine the potential connection between the loosely, tightly, or simultaneously coupled administrative style and the experience of professional agency of teaching staff in Finnish higher education institutions. The data was gathered through semi-structured thematic interviews and a quantitative survey from 21 informants. The findings revealed that all three administrative styles had both benefits and challenges for the interviewee’s experience of professional agency but with the emphasis on challenges from the tightly coupled features. The results highlight the potential connection with the expert organization’s administrative style and the organization’s most valuable asset: a motivated and committed staff.

Unchosen transformative experiences and the experience of agency

Unchosen transformative experiences and the experience of agency

Development of the bodily self: Effects of visuomotor synchrony and visual appearance on virtual embodiment in children and adults

The sense of a bodily self is thought to depend on adaptive weighting and integration of bodily afferents and prior beliefs. Evidence from studies using paradigms such as the rubber hand illusion and full body illusion suggests changes in the integration of visuotactile bodily signals throughout childhood. Here, we extended this line of research by assessing how bottom-up visuomotor synchrony and expectancy, modulated by visual appearance of virtual avatars, contribute to embodiment in children. We compared responses to a first-person perspective virtual full body illusion from 8- to 12-year-old children and adults while manipulating synchrony of the avatar’s movements (synchronous, 0.5-s delay, or 1-s delay compared with the participant’s movements) and appearance of the avatar (human or skeleton). We measured embodiment with both subjective questionnaires and objective skin conductance responses to virtual threat. Results showed that children experienced ownership for the virtual avatar in a similar way as adults, which was reduced with increasing asynchrony, and for the skeleton avatar as compared with the human avatar. This modulation of ownership was not reflected in the skin conductance responses, which were equally high in all experimental conditions and only showed a modulation of repetition by age. In contrast, in children the subjective experience of agency was less affected by the dampening effects of visuomotor asynchrony or reduced human likeness and was overall higher. These findings suggest that children can easily embody a virtual avatar but that different aspects of embodiment develop at different rates, which could have important implications for applications of embodied virtual reality.

Neural correlates of implicit agency during the transition from adolescence to adulthood: An ERP study

Sense of agency (SoA), the experience of being in control of our voluntary actions and their outcomes, is a key feature of normal human experience. Frontoparietal brain circuits associated with SoA undergo a major maturational process during adolescence. To examine whether this translates to neurodevelopmental changes in agency experience, we investigated two key neural processes associated with SoA, the activity that is leading to voluntary action (Readiness Potential) and the activity that is associated with the action outcome processing (attenuation of auditory N1 and P2 event related potentials, ERPs) in mid-adolescents (13–14), late-adolescents (18–20) and adults (25–28) while they perform an intentional binding task. In this task, participants pressed a button (action) that delivered a tone (outcome) after a small delay and reported the time of the tone using the Libet clock. This action-outcome condition alternated with a no-action condition where an identical tone was triggered by a computer. Mid-adolescents showed greater outcome binding, such that they perceived self-triggered tones as being temporally closer to their actions compared to adults. Suggesting greater agency experience over the outcomes of their voluntary actions during mid-adolescence. Consistent with this, greater levels of attenuated neural response to self-triggered auditory tones (specifically P2 attenuation) were found during mid-adolescence compared to older age groups. This enhanced attenuation decreased with age as observed in outcome binding. However, there were no age-related differences in the readiness potential leading to the voluntary action (button press) as well as in the N1 attenuation to the self-triggered tones. Notably, in mid-adolescents greater outcome binding scores were positively associated with greater P2 attenuation, and smaller negativity in the late readiness potential. These findings suggest that the greater experience of implicit agency observed during mid-adolescence may be mediated by a neural over-suppression of action outcomes (auditory P2 attenuation), and over-reliance on motor preparation (late readiness potential), which we found to become adult-like during late-adolescence. Implications for adolescent development and SoA related neurodevelopmental disorders are discussed.

Livestream Experiments: The Role of COVID-19, Agency, Presence, and Social Context in Facilitating Social Connectedness.

Musical life became disrupted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many musicians and venues turned to online alternatives, such as livestreaming. In this study, three livestreamed concerts were organized to examine separate, yet interconnected concepts—agency, presence, and social context—to ascertain which components of livestreamed concerts facilitate social connectedness. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling was conducted on 83 complete responses to examine the effects of the manipulations on feelings of social connectedness with the artist and the audience. Results showed that in concert 1, where half of the participants were allowed to vote for the final song to be played, this option did not result in the experience of more agency. Instead, if their preferred song was played (regardless of voting ability) participants experienced greater connectedness to the artist. In concert 2, participants who attended the concert with virtual reality headsets experienced greater feelings of physical presence, as well as greater feelings of connectedness with the artist, than those that viewed a normal YouTube livestream. In concert 3, attendance through Zoom led to greater experience of social presence, but predicted less connectedness with the artist, compared to a normal YouTube livestream. Crucially, a greater negative impact of COVID-19 (e.g., loneliness) predicted feelings of connectedness with the artist, possibly because participants fulfilled their social needs with this parasocial interaction. Examining data from all concerts suggested that physical presence was a predictor of connectedness with both the artist and the audience, while social presence only predicted connectedness with the audience. Correlational analyses revealed that reductions in loneliness and isolation were associated with feelings of shared agency, physical and social presence, and connectedness to the audience. Overall, the findings suggest that in order to reduce feelings of loneliness and increase connectedness, concert organizers and musicians could tune elements of their livestreams to facilitate feelings of physical and social presence.

Enhanced PD-implied ratings by targeting the credit rating migration matrix

A high-quality and granular probability of default (PD) model is on many practical dimensions far superior to any categorical credit rating system. Business adoption of a PD model, however, needs to factor in the long-established business/regulatory conventions built around letter-based credit ratings. A mapping methodology that converts granular PDs into letter ratings via referencing the historical default experience of some credit rating agency exists in the literature. This paper improves the PD implied rating (PDiR) methodology by targeting the historical credit migration matrix instead of simply default rates. This enhanced PDiR methodology makes it possible to bypass the reliance on arbitrarily extrapolated target default rates for the AAA and AA+ categories, a necessity due to the fact that the historical realized default rates on these two top rating grades are typically zero.

Exploring difficulties in men’s experience of self and agency during antidepressant use.

Exploring difficulties in men’s experience of self and agency during antidepressant use.

Resistance, Mastery, Agency: Improvising with the feedback-actuated augmented bass

In this article I describe the development of a performance practice with a new electroacoustic instrument – the FAAB (feedback-actuated augmented bass). Drawing on a background in improvisation, I discuss how the feedback-induced behaviour of the instrument sets it apart from an acoustic bass and how the implementation of operationally closed digital signal processing algorithms facilitates greater systemic autonomy. In identifying resistance as a key feature of improvisation, I propose the term ‘diachronic mastery’ as a way of addressing the equilibration of sensorimotor schemes in the context of developing a performance practice with a complex hybrid system such as the FAAB. Through a discussion of the term ‘agency’ as it appears in recent literature, I develop a preliminary framework for addressing both the immediate experience of agency emerging in performance ecosystems and the biologically informed definition of the term that may be useful in the design of increasingly autonomous instruments and performance systems.

Mapping the Dimensions of Agency

Neural devices have the capacity to enable users to regain abilities lost due to disease or injury – for instance, a deep brain stimulator (DBS) that allows a person with Parkinson’s disease to regain the ability to fluently perform movements or a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) that enables a person with spinal cord injury to control a robotic arm. While users recognize and appreciate the technologies’ capacity to maintain or restore their capabilities, the neuroethics literature is replete with examples of concerns expressed about agentive capacities: A perceived lack of control over the movement of a robotic arm might result in an altered sense of feeling responsible for that movement. Clinicians or researchers being able to record and access detailed information of a person’s brain might raise privacy concerns. A disconnect between previous, current, and future understandings of the self might result in a sense of alienation. The ability to receive and interpret sensory feedback might change whether someone trusts the implanted device or themselves. Inquiries into the nature of these concerns and how to mitigate them has produced scholarship that often emphasizes one issue – responsibility, privacy, authenticity, or trust – selectively. However, we believe that examining these ethical dimensions separately fails to capture a key aspect of the experience of living with a neural device. In exploring their interrelations, we argue that their mutual significance for neuroethical research can be adequately captured if they are described under a unified heading of agency. On these grounds, we propose an “Agency Map” which brings together the diverse neuroethical dimensions and their interrelations into a comprehensive framework. With this, we offer a theoretically-grounded approach to understanding how these various dimensions are interwoven in an individual’s experience of agency.

Experience of the Brazilian health regulatory agency in coping with the covid-19 pandemic: preventive actions of infection in health services

COVID-19 is a public health problem worldwide. The Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) is responsible for preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), in conjunction with state and municipal health surveillance centers (VISAs). Thus, the present study aimed to relate the experience of ANVISA in organizing, preventing and monitoring COVID-19 in the country’s healthcare services. Given the emergency, ANVISA, VISAs and specialists developed sanitary strategies and actions to organize, prevent and monitor COVID-19, between December 2019 and March 2021, in order to establish national disease prevention measures, and collect HAI-COVID-19 data. A number of national regulations and recommendations were published, such as technical notes and risk alerts to prevent COVID-19, in addition to disseminating the measures adopted. The experience may contribute to organizing, preventing and monitoring COVID-19, provided the national measures established are adopted by healthcare services. The improvement in sanitary response processes to prevent COVID-19 in these services is essential to strengthening the Brazilian Health Regulatory System (SNVS) in the fight against the disease.

‘Free to act by your own lights’: Agency and Predestination in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Novels

Abstract This article explores Marilynne Robinson’s attempt to reconcile the doctrine of predestination with a commitment to human agency by reading her novels Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack alongside their intertextual companion, John Calvin. I argue that, rather than attempting to penetrate the enigma of predestination and agency through theological treatises, Robinson embodies the tension between them in fiction. Rather than defining a solution to the problem, she meaningfully charts the lived experience of it. Indeed, in the Gilead novels the experience of agency is itself agency within a universe defined by God’s omnipotence. At the same time, characters’ freedom to act otherwise than habit or impulse would dictate depends on right perception. Robinson’s unique contribution to an American literary and theological legacy is to animate these tensions as only fiction can. Her novels offer a theological vista that cannot be separated from their fictional content, and so things that seem like tautologies grow profound through narration.

Schizotypy and the vicarious experience of agency.

Sense of agency is the experience of initiating and controlling an action in order to influence one’s environment. It is widely accepted that various different sources of information contribute to sense of agency, including sensorimotor signals and external situational information. Moreover, it has been suggested that atypical experiences in sense of agency in schizophrenia are linked to changes in the relative influence of these agency cues, with external cues being more dominant. This study tests this hypothesis in a non-clinical population by investigating the relationship between schizotypy and performance on the vicarious agency task (a classic demonstration of the effect of external cues on sense of agency). We found that increased susceptibility to the vicarious agency illusion (i.e. an increased feeling of controlling someone else’s action) was linked to higher schizotypy scores. This supports the idea that aberrant experiences of agency in schizophrenia are linked to an increased sensitivity to external agency cues.

A National Survey of Challenges Faced by Hospices During the Opioid Crisis: Estimates of Pain Medication Shortages, Missing Medications, and Opioids Left in the Home Post-Death

ContextNo national data exist on hospice medication shortages, the frequency that opioid medications go missing, and drug disposal practices. ObjectivesTo provide national estimates for hospices on: drug shortages; frequency of missing medications; and opioids left in the home post-death. MethodsA national survey of 600 randomly selected hospices stratified by state and profit status (data collection 2018). Sample weights were applied to adjust for non-response. Respondents were hospice representatives knowledgeable about agency policies and practices. Participants reported their knowledge and perceptions about medication shortages, frequency that opioid medications go missing, and the proportion of hospice deaths in which opioids are left in the home. Findings were stratified by agency size. Results371 hospices completed surveys (response rate = 62%), half (50%) of which were mid-sized (26-100 patients), and not-for-profit. Respondents had 7.5 years (SD = 7.7) of agency experience. 42% of hospices – and 61% of large hospices – reported medication shortages. Among the full sample, 28% of agencies indicated shortages of morphine; 20% reported shortages of hydromorphone. Nearly half (43%) of hospice representatives reported that missing opioid medications occurred within the last 90 days. 52% of representatives reported employees are not allowed to dispose of medications after a home death; and, among home deaths, unused opioids were left in the home 32% of the time. This suggests opioid medications are frequently left in U.S. households after a hospice home death. ConclusionHospices face numerous challenges during the national opioid crisis. Interventions are needed to ensure access to needed treatments, mitigation of diversion, and safe medication disposal.

Calibrating Police Activity Across Hot Spot and Non-Hot Spot Areas

Maximizing crime prevention through large-scale implementation of hot spot policing requires a more refined understanding of how to calibrate police activity across high and low-risk areas. This study investigates these issues based on the experience of a large urban police agency that substantially reduced proactive activities across a large area due to resource cutbacks while also shifting a larger share of its declining proactive work into prioritized micro hot spots. Time series models were used to estimate the effects of these changes on crime-related calls in hot spots and non-hot spot areas. Hot spots required higher levels of proactivity (expressed as rates per day or per crime) to control crime, and serious crime rose in these locations following modest reductions in proactivity. In areas outside hot spots, minor and property crimes rose, but only after reductions of one-half to two-thirds in proactive work. Violence was unaffected in these areas, and they did not experience accelerated growth in crime relative to prioritized hot spots. These results help to illuminate minimum levels of police activity that may be necessary to control crime in places of varying risk. They also suggest that police can reduce proactive work by substantial amounts in lower risk areas to place more emphasis on hot spots. Better understanding of these issues is central to widespread, systematic operationalization of hot spot policing as a means to reduce crime across large areas.

“If you don’t have a word for something, you may doubt whether it’s even real” – how individuals with borderline personality disorder experience change

Objective: This study explored how psychological change was experienced and what treatment-related factors or events were perceived as supporting or hindering their process by individuals with borderline personality disorder. Methods: Eight BPD sufferers attended a 40-session psychoeducational group intervention at a community mental health care center. At intervention end, personal experience of meaningful change was explored in an in-depth interview and data were content-analyzed. Change in BPD symptoms was assessed by the Borderline Personality Disorder Severity Index IV interview. Results: The qualitative content analysis on subjectively perceived meaningful change yielded three core categories: (1) improved ability to observe and understand mental events, (2) decreased disconnection from emotions, emergence of new or adaptive emotional reactions and decrease in maladaptive ones, and (3) a new, more adaptive experience of self and agency. Accordingly, (1) learning and (2) normalizing emerged as the main categories of helpful treatment factors. In turn, treatment-related factors perceived as obstacles were: (1) aggression in the group, and (2) inflexibility. With respect to symptom change, four participants were considered clinically as remitted, and two showed a reliable change. Conclusions: Long-term psychoeducational group therapy seems to enhance mentalization / metacognitive functioning and promote self (or personality) integration in BPD patients.

The Paternal Function in Anorexia Nervosa.

The role of the father, both flesh-and-blood and symbolic, is explored in a subset of families of patients with anorexia nervosa. In these families the mother's narcissistic investment in her child makes separation-individuation difficult. A factor potentially influencing whether the child goes on to develop anorexia nervosa is the strength of the paternal function, which optimally helps the child learn how to appropriately deploy his aggression in the service of separation-individuation and as a means of developing "the experience of agency": the phenomenological experience of oneself as having an intentional impact. The role of the paternal function in developing the experience of agency is illuminated by the metaphor of rough-and-tumble play, which encapsulates the kind of experience with early objects that facilitates or forecloses the child's capacity for experiencing agency. In the families of these patients, the father is frequently described as passive or absent and the paternal function as compromised, which arguably leads the anorexic-to-be to relegate his experience of agency to his body, which he subjugates through omnipotent control.

A review on the experience of agency in humancomputer interactions

The feeling of being able to influence both one's body and the external world is known as agency. Although the feeling of agency has been widely researched, there are few studies in "real-life " circumstances. Human-computer interaction (HCI) seems to be a very important applied topic, since technology is being used in our daily agentive interactions. Indeed, the sense of control has long been acknowledged in HCI as a crucial element in how humans engage with technology. The goal of this study is to summarize and investigate the potential connections between feeling of agency and control understanding in HCI. For computer input modalities and system feedback, computer help, and collaborative activities between people and computers, we investigate the overlap between HCI and feeling of agency. How agency research may inform HCI and vice versa is an important concern. Finally, amid an ever-increasing society of technology users and intelligent machine interfaces, we explore the possible ethical implications of human responsibility.