One of the main obstacles to the realization of intentions for future actions and to the successful pursuit of long-term goals is lack of self-control. But, what does it mean to engage in self-controlled behaviour? On a motivational construal of self-control, self-control involves resisting our competing temptations, impulses, and urges in order to do what we deem to be best. The conflict we face is between our better judgments or intentions and “hot” motivational forces that drive or compel us to (...) act in opposing ways. In contrast, on an executive construal of self-control, the emphasis is not on overcoming temptation, but on overriding or inhibiting “cold” automatically triggered routines and habits that are at odds with what we intend to do. Our general aim in this chapter is to contribute to the development of an overarching theory of self-control by exploring ways in which these two apparently competing frameworks can be reconciled. We propose that self-control is best understood as a hybrid set of skills. We draw on recent work on expert motor skill to highlight important ways in which experts differ from novices in the capacities they deploy and the ways in which they deploy them. We consider analogies (and disanalogies) between the domain of sports expertise and the domain of self-control. We end by considering how such a hybrid approach can help us reconcile a motivational and an executive approach to self-control. (shrink)

A sense of agency over wilful actions is thought to be dependent on the level of choice and the nature of the outcome. In a preregistered study, we manipulated choice and valence of outcome to assess the relationship between SoA across the depression and psychosis continuum. Participants completed a Libet Clock task, in which they had either a free or forced choice to press one of two buttons and received either a rewarding or punishing outcome. Participants also completed questionnaires on (...) depressive and psychosis-like traits. Rewarding outcomes increased intentional binding. The evidence favoured no effect of choice on average, but this was influenced by inter-individual differences. Individuals reporting more depressive traits had less of a difference in intentional binding between free and forced choice conditions. We show that implicit SoA is sensitive to outcome valence and the effect of choice differs across the depression continuum. (shrink)

In this article, we suggest that the study of social interactions and the development of a “sense of agency” in joint action can help determine the content of relevant explanations to be implemented in artificial systems to make them “explainable.” The introduction of automated systems, and more broadly of Artificial Intelligence, into many domains has profoundly changed the nature of human activity, as well as the subjective experience that agents have of their own actions and their consequences – an experience (...) that is commonly referred to as sense of agency. We propose to examine the empirical evidence supporting this impact of automation on individuals’ sense of agency, and hence on measures as diverse as operator performance, system explicability and acceptability. Because of some of its key characteristics, AI occupies a special status in the artificial systems landscape. We suggest that this status prompts us to reconsider human–AI interactions in the light of human–human relations. We approach the study of joint actions in human social interactions to deduce what key features are necessary for the development of a reliable sense of agency in a social context and suggest that such framework can help define what constitutes a good explanation. Finally, we propose possible directions to improve human–AI interactions and, in particular, to restore the sense of agency of human operators, improve their confidence in the decisions made by artificial agents, and increase the acceptability of such agents. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to characterize the rich interplay between automatic and cognitive control processes that we propose is the hallmark of skill, in contrast to habit, and what accounts for its flexibility. We argue that this interplay isn't entirely hierarchical and static, but rather heterarchical and dynamic. We further argue that it crucially depends on the acquisition of detailed and well-structured action representations and internal models, as well as the concomitant development of metacontrol processes that can be (...) used to shape and balance it. (shrink)

This article makes the case that our digital devices create illusions of agency. There are times when users feel as if they are in control when in fact they are merely responding to stimuli on the screen in predictable ways. After the introduction, the second section of the article offers examples of illusions of agency that do not involve human–computer interaction in order to show that such illusions are possible and not terribly uncommon. The third and fourth sections of the (...) article cover relevant work from empirical psychology, including the cues that are known to generate the sense of agency. The fifth section of the article shows that our devices are designed to deliver precisely those cues. In the sixth section, the argument is completed with evidence that users frequently use their smartphones without the sort of intentional supervision involved in genuine agency. This sixth section includes the introduction of Digital Environmental Dependency Syndrome (DEDS) as a possible way of characterizing extended use of the smartphone without genuine agency. In the final section of the article, there is a discussion of questions raised by the main claim, including suggestions for reducing occurrences of illusions of agency through software design. (shrink)

Developments in neurotechnology took a leap forward with the demonstration of the first Brain to Brain Interface (BBI). BBIs enable direct communication between two brains via a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) and bypasses the peripheral nervous system. This discovery promises new possibilities for future battlefield technology. As battlefield technology evolves, it is more likely to place greater demands on future soldiers. Future soldiers are more likely to process large amounts of data derived from an extensive networks of humans and machines. (...) This raises several ethical and philosophical concerns. This paper will look at BBI technology in current stages of research, future BBI applications in the military and how the potential use of BBIs in military operations challenges the way we understand the concept of responsibility. In this paper, I propose that an individual connected to a BBI ought not to be held fully responsible for her actions. The justification for this proposition is based on three key points such as an individual connected to a BBI does not have the ability to act freely, has a diminished sense of self-agency and may not be able to demonstrate authenticity of the thoughts and memories generated when connected to the interface. (shrink)

People have little difficulty distinguishing effects they cause and those they do not. An important question is what underlies this sense of agency. A prevailing idea is that the sense of agency arises from a comparison between a predictive representation of the effect and the actual effect that occurs, with a clear match between the two producing a strong sense of agency. Although there is general agreement on this comparison process, one important theoretical issue that has yet to be fully (...) determined is whether these computations are consciously performed. Here, we studied this issue by requiring participants to perform a simple judgment of agency task under conditions of different concurrent working memory load. Working memory operations are known to tax conscious cognitive resources. We found that agency judgments were moderated by working memory load, with lower agency ratings being observed in the high load condition, suggesting that the sense of agency is dependent on the availability of conscious cognitive resources. An examination of the time-course of this load effect suggests that it is the construction of the mental representation of the predicted effect which is particularly dependent on said resources. (shrink)

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...) In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, have been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people’s causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. (shrink)

A dominant view in contemporary cognitive neuroscience is that low-level, comparator-based mechanisms of motor control produce a distinctive experience often called the feeling of agency . An opposing view is that comparator-based motor control is largely non-conscious and not associated with any particular type of distinctive phenomenology . In this paper, I critically evaluate the nature of the empirical evidence researchers commonly take to support FoA-hypothesis. The aim of this paper is not only to scrutinize the FoA-hypothesis and data supposed (...) to support it; it is equally to argue that experimentalists supporting the FoA-hypothesis fail to establish that the experimental outcomes are more probable given the FoA-hypothesis than given the simpler hypothesis. (shrink)

The phenomenology of controlled action depends on comparisons between predicted and actually perceived sensory feedback called action-effects. We investigated if intervening task-irrelevant but semantically related information influences monitoring processes that give rise to a sense of control. Participants judged whether a moving box “obeyed” or “disobeyed” their own arrow keystrokes or visual cues representing the computer’s choices . During 1 s delays between keystrokes/cues and box movements, participants vocalized directions cued by letters inside the box. Congruency of cued vocalizations was (...) manipulated relative to previously selected keystrokes and upcoming box movements. In Experiment 1, reported obey moves and feelings of control reflected the true frequency of obey moves, but were also modulated by vocalizations. Incongruent vocalizations reduced reported obey moves, whereas congruent vocalizations increased them. In Experiment 2, vocalizations had stronger effects when their congruence with primary-task box movement was consistent for several consecutive moves before congruence changed. In Experiment 3, analogous impacts of vocalizations occurred when the computer selected the directions and participants judged whether the computer had control of the box. We conclude that predicted and perceived action-effects associated with semantically related but separate and ostensibly irrelevant actions can be conflated with one another. This interference is not restricted to actions performed with the same effector or within the same modality, or even by the same actor. Thus in estimating degrees of control, the mind integrates across ongoing action systems, whether or not they are logically task-relevant. (shrink)

The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impacts of unconscious stimuli on conscious behaviors, and the congruency effect of priming on free choices has gained increasing attention. Free choices allow participants to voluntarily choose a response from multiple options during each trial. While repeated practice is known to increase priming effects in subliminal visual tasks, whether practice increases the priming effect of free choices in the masked priming paradigm is unclear. And it is also not (...) clear how the proportions of free choice and forced choice trials in one block will affect the free choice masked priming effect. The present study applied repeated practice in the masked priming paradigm and found that after training, the participants were more likely to be influenced by masked primes during free choice, but this training process did not alter the visibility of masked stimuli. In addition, this study revealed that when the proportions of free choice and forced choice trials were equal during the training stage, this enhanced effect by practice was the strongest. These results indicated that practice could enhance masked stimulus processing in free-choice, and that the learning effect may mainly be derived from the early selection and integrated processing of masked stimuli. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the comparator model is not a satisfactory model of sense of agency (SoA). We present a theoretical argument and experimental studies. We show (1) most studies of SoA neglect a distinction between SoA associated with movements (narrow SoA) and SoA associated with environmental events (broad SoA); (2) the comparator model emerges from experimental studies of sensory consequences narrowly associated with movements; (3) narrow SoA can be explained by a comparator model, but a motor signal (...) model is simpler and explain narrow SoA equally well; and (4) standard experimental paradigms study only broad SoA. Finally, we present results from two experiments, where we have failed to induce illusory narrow SoA in healthy participants. We believe our experimental approaches should have led to illusory SoA, if the comparator model of SoA was correct. The results challenge proponents of the comparator model of narrow SoA. (shrink)

The main contention of this paper is that, just as there is something it is like to smell a rose, taste chocolate, and hear a siren, there is something it is like to perform an action. In other words, I will argue that we ought to recognize, alongside these other familiar forms of phenomenology, a distinctive phenomenology of agency. My claim is not simply that there is some subjective experience that attaches to the performance of actions. No one disputes that (...) action is typically accompanied by a range of kinaesthetic and visual experiences, and often preceded by conscious thoughts about what to do. The position I wish to defend, rather, is that there is a proprietary phenomenology or subjective character associated with action that “goes beyond” (Horgan et al. 2003, p. 323) these familiar types of sensory and cognitive experience (for other treatments of this topic, see Horgan 2007; Bayne and Levy 2006; Bayne 2008; Pacherie 2008; Kriegel 2015; Shepherd 2017). (shrink)

Intentions are commonly conceived of as discrete mental states that are the direct cause of actions. In the last several decades, neuroscientists have taken up the project of finding the neural implementation of intentions, and a number of areas have been posited as implementing these states. We argue, however, that the processes underlying action initiation and control are considerably more dynamic and context sensitive than the concept of intention can allow for. Therefore, adopting the notion of ‘intention’ in neuroscientific explanations (...) can easily lead to misinterpretation of the data, and can negatively influence investigation into the neural correlates of intentional action.We suggest reinterpreting the mechanisms underlying intentional action, and we will discuss the elements that such a reinterpretation needs to account for. (shrink)

Humans have been shown capable of performing many cognitive tasks using information of which they are not consciously aware. This raises questions about what role consciousness actually plays in cognition. Here, we explored whether participants can learn cue-target contingencies in an attentional learning task when the cues were presented below the level of conscious awareness, and how this differs from learning about conscious cues. Participants’ manual (Experiment 1) and saccadic (Experiment 2) response speeds were influenced by both conscious and unconscious (...) cues. However, participants were only able to adapt to reversals of the cue-target contingencies (Experiment 1) or changes in the reliability of the cues (Experiment 2) when consciously aware of the cues. Therefore, although visual cues can be processed unconsciously, learning about cues over a few trials requires conscious awareness of them. Finally, we discuss implications for cognitive theories of consciousness. (shrink)

The sense of agency is typically defined as the experience of controlling one’s own actions, and through them, changes in the external environment. It is often assumed that this experience is a single, unified construct that can be experimentally manipulated and measured in a variety of ways. In this article, we challenge this assumption. We argue that we should acknowledge four possible agency-related psychological constructs. Having a clear grasp of the possible constructs is important since experimental procedures are only able (...) to target some but not all the possible constructs. The unacknowledged misalignment of the possible constructs of a sense of agency and the experimental procedures is a major theoretical and methodological obstacle to studying the sense of agency. Only if we recognize the nature of this obstacle will we be able to design the experimental paradigms that would enable us to study the responsible computational mechanisms. (shrink)