Reflecting on the action or its outcome: Behavior representation level modulates high level outcome priming effects on self-agency experiences

Choice effects on temporal binding of action and outcomes: Examining the role of outcome focus and measures of time interval estimation

The ability to make one's own choices is vital to the experience of intentional behavior. Such agency experiences are reflected in the perceptual compression of time between actions and resulting outcomes. Whereas some studies show that choice limitations weaken temporal binding, other studies do not find such an effect. Reviewing the literature, we noted two potential factors that may moderate choice limitation effects on temporal binding: (a) the extent to which individuals represent their actions in terms of the consequences they produce; and (b) the response mode of the time interval estimation measurement where participants report numbers or use a slider to indicate time intervals. Testing these conceptual and methodological factors in two separate experiments yielded clear effects of choice limitation on temporal binding but no clear moderator role of the two factors. Interestingly, overall analyses showed that the choice limitation effect gradually vanishes over time.

How the environment evokes actions that lead to different goals: the role of object multi-functionality in pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer

Research shows that stimuli in the environment can trigger behavior via the activation of goal representations. This process can be tested in the Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) paradigm, where stimuli can only affect behavior through the activation of the representation of its desired outcome (i.e., the PIT effect). Previous research has demonstrated that the PIT effect is stronger when the goal is more desirable. While this research only looked at actions that have single outcomes (e.g., obtaining a snack to satisfy appetite), in the present paper, we reason that actions that are instrumental in obtaining outcomes that are desirable in multiple ways (e.g., obtaining a snack to satisfy one's appetite, giving it to a friend, trading it for money) should produce stronger PIT effects. In two experiments, participants learned to perform left and right key presses to earn a snack, either framed as having a single function or multiple functions. Participants also learned to associate the two differently framed snacks with two cues. In a PIT test, they were required to press the keys as fast as possible upon exposure to the cues (i.e., the PIT effect). We found that cues associated with the multi-functional snack facilitated the actions that earned those snacks before, while cues associated with the single-functional snack did not facilitate such actions. We discuss these findings in the context of research on free choice and personal autonomy and how people appreciate the multi-functional nature of their goal-directed behavior in the environment.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04612-2.

Non-motor cues do not generate the perception of self-agency: A critique of cue-integration

How does one know that (s)he is the causal agent of their motor actions? Earlier theories of sense of agency have attributed the capacity for perception of self-agency to the comparator process of the motor-control/action system. However, with the advent of the findings implying a role of non-motor cues (like affective states, beliefs, primed concepts, and social instructions or previews of actions) in the sense of agency literature, the perception of self-agency is hypothesized to be generated even by non-motor cues (based on their relative reliability or weighting estimate); and, this theory is come to be known as the cue-integration of sense of agency. However, the cue-integration theory motivates skepticism about whether it is falsifiable and whether it is plausible that non-motor cues that are sensorily unrelated to typical sensory processes of self-agency have the capacity to produce a perception of self-agency. To substantiate this skepticism, I critically analyze the experimental operationalizations of cue-integration-with the (classic) vicarious agency experiment as a case study-to show that (1) the participants in these experiments are ambiguous about their causal agency over motor actions, (2) thus, these participants resort to reports of self-agency as heuristic judgments (under ambiguity) rather than due to cue-integration per se, and (3) there might not have occurred cue-integration based self-agency reports if these experimental operationalizations had eliminated ambiguity about the causal agency. Thus, I conclude that the reports of self-agency (observed in typical non-motor cues based cue-integration experiments) are not instances of perceptual effect-that are hypothesized to be produced by non-motor cues-but are of heuristic judgment effect.

On the course of goal pursuit: The influence of goal progress on explicit judgments of self-agency

The experience of causing our own actions and resulting outcomes (i.e., self-agency) is essential for the regulation of our actions during goal pursuit. In two experiments, participants indicated experienced self-agency over presented outcomes, which varied in distance to their goal in an agency-ambiguous task. In Study 1, progress was manipulated at trial level (i.e., stimuli moved randomly or sequentially towards the goal). In Study 2, progress was constant at trial level (sequential), but varied at task level (i.e., goal discrepancy of the outcomes was random or decreased over trials). Study 1 showed that self-agency gradually increased in the progress condition as unsuccessful outcomes were objectively closer to the goal, while self-agency increased exponentially upon full goal attainment in the absence of progress. The gradual pattern for the progress condition was replicated in Study 2. These studies indicate that explicit judgments of self-agency are more flexible when there is goal progress.

What am I doing? It depends: agency and action identification

Actions can be identified at a range of levels, from higher level, outcome-related descriptions to lower level, movement-related descriptions. But how do these levels of identification influence the experience of control (agency) over a task? We addressed the relation between the level of action identification and agency using a hierarchical task modeled from typing. Participants memorized letter sequences and reported them by moving a cursor to targets that contained letters. To manipulate lower level (aiming) difficulty, the targets were either large or small. To manipulate higher level (memory) difficulty, the letter sequences were either constant or random within a block. We found effects of higher and lower level difficulty on agency and action identification. Moreover, we found interactive effects of higher and lower level difficulty on performance. We discuss these findings in terms of contributions to the study of agency, and some differences from the results of previous studies of action identification.

Studying Human Habits in Societal Context: Examining Support for a Basic Stimulus–Response Mechanism

Human habits are considered to be an important root of societal problems. The significance of habits has been demonstrated for a variety of behaviors in different domains, such as work, transportation, health, and ecology, suggesting that habits have a pervasive impact on human life. Studying and changing habits in societal context requires a broad view of behavior, which poses a challenge for applying basic models to complex human habits. We address the conceptualization and operationalization of habits in the current literature and note that claims about the role of habits in societal context rarely agree with the basic definition of habits as goal-independent behavior. We consider future directions that are important for making progress in the study of habit change in societal context.

A matter of you versus me? Experiences of control in a joint go/no-go task

When interacting with others, people represent their own as well as their interaction partners' actions. Such joint action representation is essential for action coordination, but may also interfere with action control. We investigated how joint action representations affect experienced control over people's own actions and their interaction partners' actions. Participants performed a joint go/no-go task, which is commonly used to measure to what extent people represent their own actions in spatial reference to their interaction partner (e.g., as 'left' vs. 'right'). After each second trial, participants indicated experienced control over their own action, their interaction partner's action, or over action inhibition. Despite this frequent interruption of the go/no-go task, we found strong evidence for the spatial representation of joint actions. However, this joint action representation did not affect experiences of control. Possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.

Impaired self-agency inferences in schizophrenia: The role of cognitive capacity and causal reasoning style

BACKGROUND

The sense of self-agency, i.e., experiencing oneself as the cause of one's own actions, is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Normally, inferences of self-agency are enhanced when actual outcomes match with pre-activated outcome information, where this pre-activation can result from explicitly set goals (i.e., goal-based route) or implicitly primed outcome information (i.e., prime-based route). Previous research suggests that patients show specific impairments in the prime-based route, implicating that they do not rely on matches between implicitly available outcome information and actual action-outcomes when inferring self-agency. The question remains: Why? Here, we examine whether neurocognitive functioning and self-serving bias (SSB) may explain abnormalities in patients' agency inferences.

METHODS

Thirty-six patients and 36 healthy controls performed a commonly used agency inference task to measure goal- and prime-based self-agency inferences. Neurocognitive functioning was assessed with the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) and the SSB was assessed with the Internal Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Results showed a substantial smaller effect of primed outcome information on agency experiences in patients compared with healthy controls. Whereas patients and controls differed on BACS and marginally on SSB scores, these differences were not related to patients' impairments in prime-based agency inferences.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients showed impairments in prime-based agency inferences, thereby replicating previous studies. This finding could not be explained by cognitive dysfunction or SSB. Results are discussed in the context of the recent surge to understand and examine deficits in agency experiences in schizophrenia.

Abnormalities in the experience of self-agency in schizophrenia: A replication study

People usually experience agency over their actions and subsequent outcomes. These agency inferences over action-outcomes are essential to social interaction, and occur when an actual outcome corresponds with either a specific goal (goal-based), and matches with action-outcome information that is subtly pre-activated in the situation at hand (prime-based). Recent research showed that schizophrenia patients exhibit goal-based inferences, but not prime-based inferences. Intrigued by these findings, and underscoring their potential role in explaining poor social functioning, we replicate patients' deficit in prime-based agency inferences. Additionally, we exclude the account that patients are unable to visually process and attend to primed information.

From action intentions to action effects: how does the sense of agency come about?

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of controlling an external event through one's own action. On one influential view, agency depends on how predictable the consequences of one's action are, getting stronger as the match between predicted and actual effect of an action gets closer. Thus, sense of agency arises when external events that follow our action are consistent with predictions of action effects made by the motor system while we perform or simply intend to perform an action. According to this view, agency is inferred retrospectively, after an action has been performed and its consequences are known. In contrast, little is known about whether and how internal processes involved in the selection of actions may influence subjective sense of control, in advance of the action itself, and irrespective of effect predictability. In this article, we review several classes of behavioral and neuroimaging data suggesting that earlier processes, linked to fluency of action selection, prospectively contribute to sense of agency. These findings have important implications for better understanding human volition and abnormalities of action experience.

Feedback about action performed can alter the sense of self-agency

Sense of agency refers to the sense of authorship of an action and its outcome. Sense of agency is often explained through computational models of motor control (e.g., the comparator model). Previous studies using the comparator model have manipulated action-outcome contingency to understand its effect on the sense of agency. More recent studies have shown that cues related to outcome, priming outcome and priming action have an effect on agency attribution. However, relatively few studies have focused on the effect of recalibrating internal predictions on the sense of agency. This study aims to investigate how feedback about action can recalibrate prediction and modulates the sense of agency. While participants performed a Flanker task, we manipulated the feedback about the validity of the action performed, independent of their responses. When true feedback is given, the sense of agency would reflect congruency between the sensory outcome and the action performed. The results show an opposite effect on the sense of agency when false feedback was given. We propose that feedback about action performed can recalibrate the prediction of sensory outcome and thus alter the sense of agency.

Abnormalities in the establishment of feeling of self-agency in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

People usually feel they cause their own actions and the consequences of those actions, i.e., they attribute behavior to the proper agent. Research suggests that there are two routes to the experience of self-agency: 1) an explicit route, where one has the intention to obtain a goal (if it occurs, I must have done it) and 2) an implicit route, where information about the goal is unconsciously available and increases the feeling of self-agency. Schizophrenia patients typically experience no behavioral control and exhibit difficulties in distinguishing one's own actions from those of others. The present study investigates differences in both routes to self-agency experiences between schizophrenia patients and controls.

METHODS

Twenty-three schizophrenia patients and 23 controls performed a task where they performed an action (button press) and subsequently indicated whether or not they were the agent of the consequence of this action (the outcome) on a 9-point scale. The task can be manipulated to measure both the explicit and implicit route (by using priming) to the experience of self-agency.

RESULTS

In the explicit condition (participants intended to produce a specific outcome, and this outcome matched their goal), both groups experienced enhanced self-agency. In the implicit condition (the outcome matched the primed outcome), healthy controls showed increased self-agency over the outcome, while patients did not. Potential differences in task motivation and attention did not explain these findings.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide new evidence for the idea that implicit processes leading to feelings of self-agency may be disturbed in schizophrenia.

When moving without volition: implied self-causation enhances binding strength between involuntary actions and effects

The conscious awareness of voluntary action is associated with systematic changes in time perception: The interval between actions and outcomes is experienced as compressed in time. Although this temporal binding is thought to result from voluntary movement and provides a window to the sense of agency, recent studies challenge this idea by demonstrating binding in involuntary movement. We offer a potential account for these findings by proposing that binding between involuntary actions and effects can occur when self-causation is implied. Participants made temporal judgements concerning a key press and a tone, while they learned to consider themselves as the cause of the effect or not. Results showed that implied self-causation (vs. no implied self-causation) increased temporal binding. Since intrinsic motor cues of movement were absent, these results suggest that sensory evidence about the key press caused binding in retrospect and in line with the participant's sense of being an agent.

On the Foundations of Beliefs in Free Will

The concept of an ability to make choices and to determine one’s own outcomes fits well with experiences that most people have, and these experiences form the basis for beliefs in free will. However, the existence of conscious free will is challenged by modern research findings highlighting the unconscious origins of goal-directed behavior that gives rise to free-will beliefs. This report expands on these insights by revealing that both conscious and unconscious processes play an important role in free-will beliefs. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrates that free-will beliefs are strengthened when conscious intentions to produce action outcomes bind the perception of action and outcome together in time. Experiment 2 shows that these beliefs are strengthened when unconscious priming of action outcomes creates illusory experiences of self-agency when the primed outcomes occur. Together, these findings suggest that beliefs in free will are associated with self-agency and are enhanced by both conscious and unconscious information processing of goal-directed behavior.