title: Re-construction of action awareness depends on an internal model of action-outcome timing.
abstract: The subjective time of an instrumental action is shifted towards its outcome. This temporal binding effect is partially retrospective, i.e., occurs upon outcome perception. Retrospective binding is thought to reflect post-hoc inference on agency based on sensory evidence of the action - outcome association. However, many previous binding paradigms cannot exclude the possibility that retrospective binding results from bottom-up interference of sensory outcome processing with action awareness and is functionally unrelated to the processing of the action - outcome association. Here, we keep bottom-up interference constant and use a contextual manipulation instead. We demonstrate a shift of subjective action time by its outcome in a context of variable outcome timing. Crucially, this shift is absent when there is no such variability. Thus, retrospective action binding reflects a context-dependent, model-based phenomenon. Such top-down re-construction of action awareness seems to bias agency attribution when outcome predictability is low.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Department of Neurology, University of Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany. Electronic address: max-philipp.stenner@med.ovgu.de.
authors.forename: Max-Philipp
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Stenner
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.affiliation: German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Machts
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Hans-Jochen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Heinze
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, UK.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Haggard
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013998:Time Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Action awareness; Sense of agency; Temporal binding