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Self-awareness and action
Sarah Jayne Blakemore1, Chris Frith
1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, WC1N 3AR, London, UK.
Current Opinion in Neurobiology
|May 15, 2003
Summary
We are aware of our actions because our brain predicts their sensory consequences. This prediction helps us distinguish self-generated actions, with the parietal cortex being key to this awareness.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroscience of Action Awareness
Background:
- Understanding the sense of agency is fundamental to cognitive neuroscience.
- The mechanisms underlying the awareness of self-generated actions remain an active area of research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review evidence on how the brain distinguishes self-generated actions from external events.
- To explore the neural basis of action awareness, focusing on the role of predictive mechanisms and brain regions.
Main Methods:
- Review of behavioral studies examining action perception and agency.
- Analysis of functional neuroimaging (fMRI) data.
- Examination of patient studies in neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Main Results:
- Behavioral data suggest sensory predictions of movement consequences are crucial for labeling actions as self-generated.
- Functional neuroimaging implicates the parietal cortex in the awareness of action.
- Studies of patients reveal the parietal cortex's critical role in action awareness.
Conclusions:
- The predictive processing of sensory consequences is a likely mechanism for generating the sense of agency.
- The parietal cortex is a key neural substrate for the awareness of self-generated actions.