Intentional action: conscious experience and neural prediction

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Philosophy of Mind
• Psychology

Background:

• Intentional action involves neural processes and a conscious sense of agency.
• Motor prediction models are key to understanding neural control and conscious experience of action.
• The relationship between neural events and the subjective experience of authorship is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between neural and phenomenal events in intentional action.
• To determine if conscious experience of action depends on precise prediction matching or retrospective inference.
• To explore the role of predictive processing in the sense of agency.

Main Methods:

• An experiment was conducted with normal subjects judging perceived timing.
• Subjects assessed the timing of intentional actions, involuntary movements, and subsequent auditory tones.
• The study manipulated the continuity of intention and action by introducing involuntary movements.

Main Results:

• Intentional action led to 'intentional binding,' a temporal link between action and effect perception.
• Interrupting intention with involuntary movement abolished this temporal binding.
• The presence of an appropriate predictive link between intention and effect was critical.

Conclusions:

• The phenomenology of intentional action requires a predictive link between intentions and their consequences.
• Conscious authorship of action is not based on retrospective inference but on predictive processing.
• These findings advance our understanding of agency, prediction, and conscious experience in motor control.