title: The self in social interactions: sensory attenuation of auditory action effects is stronger in interactions with others.
abstract: The experience of oneself as an agent not only results from interactions with the inanimate environment, but often takes place in a social context. Interactions with other people have been suggested to play a key role in the construal of self-agency. Here, we investigated the influence of social interactions on sensory attenuation of action effects as a marker of pre-reflective self-agency. To this end, we compared the attenuation of the perceived loudness intensity of auditory action effects generated either by oneself or another person in either an individual, non-interactive or interactive action context. In line with previous research, the perceived loudness of self-generated sounds was attenuated compared to sounds generated by another person. Most importantly, this effect was strongly modulated by social interactions between self and other. Sensory attenuation of self- and other-generated sounds was increased in interactive as compared to the respective individual action contexts. This is the first experimental evidence suggesting that pre-reflective self-agency can extend to and is shaped by interactions between individuals.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. cweiss@cbs.mpg.de
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Arvid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herwig
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schütz-Bosbach
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008144:Loudness Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult