title: Sense of agency in continuous action: Assistance-induced performance improvement is self-attributed even with knowledge of assistance.
abstract: In a task involving continuous action to achieve a goal, the sense of agency increases with an improvement in task performance that is induced by unnoticed computer assistance. This study investigated how explicit instruction about the existence of computer assistance affects the increase of sense of agency that accompanies performance improvement. Participants performed a continuous action task in which they controlled the direction of motion of a dot to a goal by pressing keys. When instructions indicated the absence of assistance, the sense of agency increased with performance improvement induced by computer assistance, replicating previous findings. Interestingly, this increase of sense of agency was also observed even when instructions indicated the presence of assistance. These results suggest that even when a plausible cause of performance improvement other than one's own action exists, the improvement can be misattributed to one's own control of action, resulting in an increased sense of agency.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan. Electronic address: kazuya.inoue@aist.go.jp.
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
authors.forename: Motohiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kimura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Computer assistance; Sense of agency; Task performance