title: The relationship between human agency and embodiment.
abstract: Humans regularly feel a sense of agency (SoA) over events where the causal link between action and outcome is extremely indirect. We have investigated how intermediate (here, a robotic hand) events that intervene between action and outcome may alter SoA, using intentional binding measures. The robotic hand either performed the same movement as the participant (active congruent), or performed a similar movement with another finger (active incongruent). Binding was significantly reduced in the active incongruent relative to the active congruent condition, suggesting that altered embodiment influences SoA. However, binding effects were comparable between a condition where the robot hand made a congruent movement, and conditions where no robot hand was involved, suggesting that intermediate and embodied events do not reduce SoA. We suggest that human sense of agency involves both statistical associations between intentions and arbitrary outcomes, and an effector-specific matching of sensorimotor means used to achieve the outcome.
authors: Consciousness, Cognition and Computation Group (CO3), Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. Electronic address: ecaspar@ulb.ac.be.
authors: Emilie A
authors: EA
authors: Caspar
authors: Consciousness, Cognition and Computation Group (CO3), Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.
authors: Axel
authors: A
authors: Cleeremans
authors: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London (UCL), United Kingdom.
authors: Patrick
authors: P
authors: Haggard
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D011434:Proprioception; D012371:Robotics; D012649:Self Concept; D000068356:Self-Control; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Body-ownership; Human-robot interaction; Intentional binding; Robotic hand; Sense of agency