Action and perception in social contexts: intentional binding for social action effects

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Human Agency Research

Background:

• The perception of time is influenced by the subjective experience of control over events.
• Intentional binding, a phenomenon where the perceived interval between an action and its consequence is compressed, demonstrates this influence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate intentional binding within a social context involving two interacting agents.
• To determine if individuals experience a sense of agency for actions that have social consequences.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted with participants in leader and follower roles.
• Leaders' actions triggered a tone, which cued followers to act.
• Both leaders and followers estimated temporal intervals related to the action-consequence chain.

Main Results:

• Leaders demonstrated significant intentional binding for both the leader-tone and tone-follower intervals.
• These binding effects were relative to the follower's temporal estimations.
• Leaders' subjective experience of agency extended to the consequences mediated by the follower.

Conclusions:

• Human agents possess a pre-reflective sense of agency that extends to social outcomes.
• Intentional binding serves as a marker for this sense of agency, even in dyadic interactions.
• Findings highlight the fundamental nature of agency in social cognition and interaction.