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From action intentions to action effects: how does the sense of agency come about?

Chambon, V; Sidarus, N; Haggard, P; (2014) From action intentions to action effects: how does the sense of agency come about? Front Hum Neurosci , 8 , Article 320. 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00320. Green open access

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Abstract

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of controlling an external event through one's own action. On one influential view, agency depends on how predictable the consequences of one's action are, getting stronger as the match between predicted and actual effect of an action gets closer. Thus, sense of agency arises when external events that follow our action are consistent with predictions of action effects made by the motor system while we perform or simply intend to perform an action. According to this view, agency is inferred retrospectively, after an action has been performed and its consequences are known. In contrast, little is known about whether and how internal processes involved in the selection of actions may influence subjective sense of control, in advance of the action itself, and irrespective of effect predictability. In this article, we review several classes of behavioral and neuroimaging data suggesting that earlier processes, linked to fluency of action selection, prospectively contribute to sense of agency. These findings have important implications for better understanding human volition and abnormalities of action experience.

Type: Article
Title: From action intentions to action effects: how does the sense of agency come about?
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00320
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00320
Additional information: © 2014 Chambon, Sidarus and Haggard. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. PMCID: PMC4030148
Keywords: action selection, agency, angular gyrus, fluency, human volition
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1428659
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