Time warp: authorship shapes the perceived timing of actions and events.
It has been proposed that inferring personal authorship for an event gives rise to intentional binding, a perceptual illusion in which one's action and inferred effect seem closer in time than they otherwise would (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). Using a novel, naturalistic paradigm, we conducted two experiments to test this hypothesis and examine the relationship between binding and self-reported authorship. In both experiments, an important authorship indicator - consistency between one's action and a subsequent event - was manipulated, and its effects on binding and self-reported authorship were measured. Results showed that action-event consistency enhanced both binding and self-reported authorship, supporting the hypothesis that binding arises from an inference of authorship. At the same time, evidence for a dissociation emerged, with consistency having a more robust effect on self-reports than on binding. Taken together, these results suggest that binding and self-reports reveal different aspects of the sense of authorship.
Ebert
Jeffrey P
JP
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02143, USA. jebert@wjh.harvard.edu
Wegner
Daniel M
DM
D001364:Awareness; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007600:Judgment; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009949:Orientation; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012649:Self Concept; D013998:Time Perception