Action selection and action awareness.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology of Action

Background:

• Human actions are typically categorized as internally generated or externally cued.
• Distinct neural mechanisms underlie these action selection modes.
• The impact of action selection mode on subjective action experience remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how the mode of action selection influences the subjective experience of action.
• To examine the relationship between action selection parameters (choice and timing) and temporal binding.

Main Methods:

• Measurement of temporal binding, defined as the subjective compression of the interval between actions and their effects.
• Participants performed key presses, varying in action choice (left/right) and timing (cued/free).
• Judgments of action or tone onset times were collected to quantify temporal binding.

Main Results:

• Temporal binding was observed for both internally generated and stimulus-based actions.
• The degree of temporal binding varied based on the congruence of selection modes for action choice and timing.
• Stronger binding occurred when both choice and timing were selected via the same route (internally or externally).

Conclusions:

• Temporal action-effect binding is contingent upon the mode of action selection.
• Binding is maximized when actions arise from a unified selection process, whether internally driven or externally specified.