The Dynamic Boundaries of The Self: Serial Dependence In Embodied Sense of Agency

Abstract

The feeling of control over one’s actions, termed the Sense of Agency (SoA), delineates one’s experience as an embodied self. Although, this embodied experience is typically perceived as stable over time, recent theoretical accounts highlight the experience-dependent and dynamic nature of the embodied self. In this study we examined how recent experiences modulate SoA (i.e., serial dependence), and disambiguated the unique contributions of previous stimuli and choices on subsequent SoA judgments. In addition, we examined whether these effects persist across different domains of perceptual alteration. We analyzed two independent datasets of the Virtual Hand (VH) task (N = 100 participants) in which a sensorimotor conflict is introduced between the presented visual feedback and the actual movement performed. In Dataset 1, which included only temporal alterations, we found that previous stimuli recalibrate current perception, increasing the likelihood of the current choice to be different than the previous choice. Whereas previous choices induce a repetition bias increasing the likelihood to repeat choices across trials. Thus, previous external stimuli and self-generated choices exert opposing influences on SoA. We replicated these findings in Dataset 2, in which the VH task was tested with alterations in both temporal and spatial domains. In addition, we discovered that previous stimuli from a different perceptual domain exert a recalibration effect similar to stimuli from the same domain. Thus, SoA is constantly shaped by our previous subjective choices and objective stimuli experienced even across different perceptual domains. This highlights how SoA may act as unifying construct organizing our experience of the self over time and across perceptual experiences.

Judgments of agency are affected by sensory noise without recruiting metacognitive processing

“…But, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other kinds of agency manipulations. This approach is prevalent in the literature, so our findings are directly applicable to agency as it is commonly measured in experimental situations (Blakemore et al, 1999;Farrer et al, 2013;Stern et al, 2021;Wen et al, 2015b). More conceptually, the efficacy of delay manipulations has been argued to be valid for the study of more proximal agency over the body, and in external agency cases in which the timing of the outcome is well-established with precise expectations, but has been called into question as a device to truly affect sense of agency over the effects of our actions on the environment (Wen, 2019).…”

“…More conceptually, the efficacy of delay manipulations has been argued to be valid for the study of more proximal agency over the body, and in external agency cases in which the timing of the outcome is well-established with precise expectations, but has been called into question as a device to truly affect sense of agency over the effects of our actions on the environment (Wen, 2019). Our virtual hand manipulation allows us to get close to this proximal body agency while still using a delay manipulation, and, even if viewed as an external outcome, the timing of the virtual hand movement is tightly linked to our precise expectations about the timing of our own movements (Krugwasser et al, 2019;Stern et al, 2020Stern et al, , 2021. Previous work using this virtual hand agency paradigm has also validated the approach of introducing delay in the visual feedback against other measures of agency (Krugwasser et al, 2019;Stern et al, 2020).…”

The Body Knows Better: Sensorimotor signals reveal "Suboptimal" inference of the Sense of Agency in the human mind

“…In order to manage this noise and maintain a consistent sense of agency, the brain may employ a seemingly "suboptimal" inference strategy, not utilizing kinematic error information fully for explicit judgments of SoA. Indeed, participants show wide "tuning curves" for the sense of agency accepting actions with delays of up to 120 ms as their own (Krugwasser et al, 2022(Krugwasser et al, , 2019Stern et al, 2021Stern et al, , 2020. Thus, while task performance for sensorimotor conflicts is suboptimal, SoA and the bodily self are preserved in the face of noisy environments (Zaidel and Salomon, 2023).…”

“…The dual nature of SoA inference makes its empirical study challenging. A standard method for studying and measuring SoA is to ask participants to make an explicit judgment of their subjective experience of agency or control over an action (Balslev et al, 2007;Chambon et al, 2013;Nahab et al, 2011;Nierula et al, 2021;Sato, 2009;Serino et al, 2022;Stern et al, 2020) or regarding the congruency between their actions and consequences (Farrer et al, 2003;Franck et al, 2001;Krugwasser et al, 2022Krugwasser et al, , 2019Stern et al, 2021). While this explicit method is simple and direct, it only permits access to the end outcome of the SoA process, possibly conflating the implicit processing of sensorimotor conflicts and higher levels judgments.…”