The influence of performance on action-effect integration in sense of agency

Sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of being able to control an outcome through one’s own actions or will. Prior studies have shown that both sensory processing (e.g., comparisons between sensory feedbacks and predictions basing on one’s motor intentions) and high-level cognitive/constructive processes (e.g., inferences based on one’s performance or the consequences of one’s actions) contribute to judgments of sense of agency. However, it remains unclear how these two types of processes interact, which is important for clarifying the mechanisms underlying sense of agency. Thus, we examined whether performance-based inferences influence action-effect integration in sense of agency using a delay detection paradigm in two experiments. In both experiments, participants pressed left and right arrow keys to control the direction in which a moving dot was travelling. The dot’s response delay was manipulated randomly on 7 levels (0–480 ms) between the trials; for each trial, participants were asked to judge whether the dot response was delayed and to rate their level of agency over the dot. In Experiment 1, participants tried to direct the dot to reach a destination on the screen as quickly as possible. Furthermore, the computer assisted participants by ignoring erroneous commands for half of the trials (assisted condition), while in the other half, all of the participants’ commands were executed (self-control condition). In Experiment 2, participants directed the dot as they pleased (without a specific goal), but, in half of the trials, the computer randomly ignored 32% of their commands (disturbed condition) rather than assisted them. The results from the two experiments showed that performance enhanced action-effect integration. Specifically, when task performance was improved through the computer’s assistance in Experiment 1, delay detection was reduced in the 480-ms delay condition, despite the fact that 32% of participants’ commands were ignored. Conversely, when no feedback on task performance was given (as in Experiment 2), the participants reported greater delay when some of their commands were randomly ignored. Furthermore, the results of a logistic regression analysis showed that the threshold of delay detection was greater in the assisted condition than in the self-control condition in Experiment 1, which suggests a wider time window for action-effect integration. A multivariate analysis also revealed that assistance was related to reduced delay detection via task performance, while reduced delay detection was directly correlated with a better sense of agency. These results indicate an association between the implicit and explicit aspects of sense of agency.     

Multi-scale control influences sense of agency: Investigating intentional binding using event-control approach

Control exercised by humans through interactions with the environment is critical for sense of agency. Here, we investigate how control at multiple levels influence implicit sense of agency measured using intentional binding. Participants are asked to hit a moving target using a joystick with noisy control followed by an intentional binding task initiated by the target hitting action. Perceptual-motor level control was manipulated through noise in the joystick controller (experiment 1) and goal-level control in terms of feedback about successful hit (experiments 2a and 2b). In the first experiment, intentional binding increased with amount of joystick control only when goal was not achieved and independent otherwise suggesting that the two levels interact hierarchically. In the second experiment, the estimated duration was dependent on when participants knew about goal completion. The results are similar to those obtained with explicit measures of sense of agency indicating that multi-scale event control influences agency.     

认知过程中的捆绑问题--认知神经科学的研究

捆绑问题是当前脑科学研究中的主要问题之一,近来已成为意识争论的焦点。该文结合国外对捆绑问题研究的最新成果,在概括介绍关于捆绑机制的主要理论的基础上,综述了捆绑问题与主要认知功能关系的研究,并指出不同认知过程中捆绑脑机制的精细化研究和一般性捆绑脑机制的系统化研究可能是今后这方面研究的重点。     

视觉工作记忆中特征绑定关系的记忆机制

弱客体理论认为, 视觉工作记忆系统是由众多特征存储的子系统组成, 不同纬度的特征独立存储在相应的有限容量的子系统中, 相互之间不会竞争记忆资源。而对于特征之间绑定关系的记忆存在不同的观点。一种观点认为绑定关系的记忆需要注意维持, 因此绑定关系的记忆会占用到特征记忆的资源; 另一种观点认为绑定关系的记忆是自动发生的, 不需要注意的维持。本实验的目的是探究特征绑定关系的记忆是否是自动发生的。在实验中, 我们设计了两种任务, 一种任务是只记忆颜色, 另一种任务是记忆颜色跟位置及其之间的绑定关系, 并测试分析视觉工作记忆相关的ERP成分CDA。结果发现两种任务条件下的CDA波幅之间没有显著差异, 说明视觉工作记忆中的特征绑定是自动发生的。     

Verbal predicates foster conscious recollection but not familiarity of a task-irrelevant perceptual feature – An ERP study

Research on the effects of perceptual manipulations on recognition memory has suggested that (a) recollection is selectively influenced by task-relevant information and (b) familiarity can be considered perceptually specific. The present experiment tested divergent assumptions that (a) perceptual features can influence conscious object recollection via verbal code despite being task-irrelevant and that (b) perceptual features do not influence object familiarity if study is verbal-conceptual. At study, subjects named objects and their presentation colour; this was followed by an old/new object recognition test. Event-related potentials (ERP) showed that a study-test manipulation of colour impacted selectively on the ERP effect associated with recollection, while a size manipulation showed no effect. It is concluded that (a) verbal predicates generated at study are potent episodic memory agents that modulate recollection even if the recovered feature information is task-irrelevant and (b) commonly found perceptual match effects on familiarity critically depend on perceptual processing at study.     

Learning to infer the time of our actions and decisions from their consequences

Research shows that people infer the time of their actions and decisions from their consequences. We asked how people know how much time to subtract from consequences in order to infer their actions and decisions. They could either subtract a fixed, default, time from consequences, or learn from experience how much time to subtract in each situation. In two experiments, participants’ actions were followed by a tone, which was presented either immediately or after a delay. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the time of their actions; in Experiment 2, the time of their decisions to act. Both actions and decisions were judged to occur sooner or later as a function of whether consequences were immediate or delayed. Estimations tended to be shifted toward their consequences, but in some cases they were shifted away from them. Most importantly, in all cases participants learned progressively to adjust their estimations with experience.     

编码和提取水平对儿童绑定加工发展的影响

将情景中的各要素绑定加工成连贯的关系结构,是形成情景记忆的核心过程。本研究使用图像配对联想学习任务,在测试阶段采用自由回忆、线索回忆和再认任务,考察了儿童二元和三元绑定能力的发展及其中编码和提取能力的影响。结果表明,绑定加工能力随年龄增长而提高,二元绑定比三元绑定的发展开始得更早。编码水平对两种绑定能力存在不同影响,5岁儿童已经具有成熟的编码信息进行二元绑定加工的能力;但三元绑定受限于编码缺陷,在6.5岁后才因相应编码能力的缓慢提高而得到少量发展。但在儿童期内,二元和三元绑定同时受到了提取能力发展的促进。     

The relationship between feature binding and consciousness: evidence from asynchronous multi-modal stimuli

Processing the various features from different feature maps and modalities in coherent ways requires a dedicated integration mechanism (“the binding problem”). Many authors have related feature binding to conscious awareness but little is known about how tight this relationship really is. We presented subjects with asynchronous audiovisual stimuli and tested whether the two features were integrated. The results show that binding took place up to 350 ms feature-onset asynchronies, suggesting that integration covers a relatively wide temporal window. We also asked subjects to explicitly judge whether the two features would belong to the same or to the different events. Unsurprisingly, synchrony judgments decreased with increasing asynchrony. Most importantly, feature binding was entirely unaffected by conscious experience: features were bound whether they were experienced as occurring together or as belonging to a separate events, suggesting that the conscious experience of unity is not a prerequisite for, or a direct consequence of binding.     

Experience of agency and sense of responsibility

The experience of agency refers to the feeling that we control our own actions, and through them the outside world. In many contexts, sense of agency has strong implications for moral responsibility. For example, a sense of agency may allow people to choose between right and wrong actions, either immediately, or on subsequent occasions through learning about the moral consequences of their actions. In this study we investigate the relation between the experience of operant action, and responsibility for action outcomes using the intentional binding effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002) as an implicit, quantitative measure related to sense of agency. We studied the time at which people perceived simple manual actions and their effects, when these actions were embedded in scenarios where their actions had unpredictable consequences that could be either moral or merely economic. We found an enhanced binding of effects back towards the actions that caused them, implying an enhanced sense of agency, in moral compared to non-moral contexts. We also found stronger binding for effects with severely negative, compared to moderately negative, values. A tight temporal association between action and effect may be a low-level phenomenal marker of the sense of responsibility.