Preoccupied minds feel less control: Sense of agency is modulated by cognitive load

Hon, Nicholas; Poh, Jia-Hou; Soon, Chun Siong

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2013.03.004

Cited by 55 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Several studies have used action-outcome delays as a way to manipulate sense of agency, most of which found that self-reported agency decreased with an increase in delayed intervals (Ebert & Wegner, 2010;Farrer, Valentin, & Hupé, 2013;Hon, Poh, & Soon, 2013;Kawabe, 2013;Kühn et al, 2011;Sato & Yasuda, 2005). However, few studies have investigated the influence of action-outcome delays on intentional binding (Buehner & Humphreys, 2009;Kühn, Brass, & Haggard, 2013), and to our knowledge, no study had examined the influence of delays on both agency judgment and the binding effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The influence of action-outcome delay and arousal on sense of agency and the intentional binding effect

Wen

Yamashita

Asama

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

124

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The sense of agency refers to the feeling of being able to initiate and control events through one's actions. The "intentional binding" effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002), refers to a subjective compression of the temporal interval between actions and their effects. The present study examined the influence of action-outcome delays and arousal on both the subjective judgment of agency and the intentional binding effect. In the experiment, participants pressed a key to trigger a central square to jump after various delays. A red central square was used in the high-arousal condition. Results showed that a longer interval between actions and their effects was associated with a lower sense of agency but a stronger intentional binding effect. Furthermore, although arousal enhanced the intentional binding effect, it did not influence the judgment of agency.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The influence of action-outcome delay and arousal on sense of agency and the intentional binding effect

Wen

Yamashita

Asama

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

124

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Haggard and Cole (2007) investigated the role of focused attention on temporal binding. In the study participants' attention was directed to one of two events, either towards the key press action or -in other trials -to the consequent tone.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and mental effort disrupts the implicit sense of agency

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigated the effect of effort on implicit agency ascription for actions performed under varying levels of physical effort or cognitive load. People are able to estimate the interval between two events accurately, but they underestimate the interval between their own actions and their outcomes. This effect is known as 'intentional binding', and may provide feedback regarding the consequences of our actions. Concurrently with the interval reproduction task, our participants pulled sports resistance bands at high and low resistance levels (Experiments 1 and 2), or performed a working memory task with high and low set-sizes (Experiment 3).Intentional binding was greater under low than high effort. When the effort was task-related (Experiment 1), this effect depended on the individual's explicit appraisal of exertion, while the effect of effort was evident at the group level when the effort was task-unrelated (physical, Experiment 2; mental, Experiment 3). These findings imply that the process of intentional binding is compromised when cognitive resources are depleted, either through physical or mental strain. We discuss this notion in relation to the integration of direct sensorimotor feedback with signals of agency and other instances of cognitive resource depletion and action control during strain.Keywords: Sense of agency, temporal binding, intentional binding, experience of effort, time perception. EFFORT DISRUPTS IMPLICIT AGENCY 3 Physical and mental effort disrupts the implicit sense of agencyIt is important that the human motor system can efficiently process events which are the result of its own actions, and to discriminate these from events in the world for which it is not responsible. For instance, if I kick a ball and it knocks over and smashes a vase of flowers, I know my action of kicking the ball was responsible for the vase smashing. Selfauthored events like this tend to be easy to identify and this feeling that 'I did it' is known as a sense of agency. Some actions are more effortful than others; kicking a ball as hard as one can might break a vase, but so might brushing one's arm against it as one walks past it precariously positioned near the edge of a table. Both these actions have the same outcome, but might require the action monitoring system to respond differently in order to correctly ascribe agency. Here, we tested the role of physical and mental effort on the ascription of sense of agency, using an implicit measure.

show abstract

“…This explains why humans find it difficult to speak and think at the same time, but can easily walk and talk simultaneously. This is interesting as recent research in cognitive neuroscience finds that increasing a person's cognitive working memory load reduces their sense of agency [5]. An implication of this finding is that voice command interfaces should only be deployed with care in situations that have high cognitive working memory loads, but also require users to maintain a strong sense of control.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Empirical Evidence for a Diminished Sense of Agency in Speech Interfaces

Limerick

Moore

Coyle

2015

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the technology underlying speech interfaces has improved in recent years, our understanding of the human side of speech interactions remains limited. This paper provides new insight on one important human aspect of speech interactions: the sense of agency -defined as the experience of controlling one's own actions and their outcomes. Two experiments are described. In each case a voice command is compared with keyboard input. Agency is measured using an implicit metric: intentional binding. In both experiments we find that participants' sense of agency is significantly reduced for voice commands as compared to keyboard input. This finding presents a fundamental challenge for the design of effective speech interfaces. We reflect on this finding and, based on current theory in HCI and cognitive neuroscience, offer possible explanations for the reduced sense of agency observed in speech interfaces.

show abstract

Preoccupied minds feel less control: Sense of agency is modulated by cognitive load

Cited by 55 publications

References 23 publications

The influence of action-outcome delay and arousal on sense of agency and the intentional binding effect

The influence of action-outcome delay and arousal on sense of agency and the intentional binding effect

Physical and mental effort disrupts the implicit sense of agency

Empirical Evidence for a Diminished Sense of Agency in Speech Interfaces

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About