Self-associated stimuli produce stronger intentional binding

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Self-generated actions are crucial for survival and influence perception.
• Intentional binding (IB) is the subjective temporal experience linking an action to its outcome.
• Existing research primarily focuses on action-self association, with less attention on outcome-self association.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of self-association with outcomes in intentional binding (IB).
• To explore the potential importance of postdictive mechanisms in self-associated IB.
• To examine self-related processing's influence on IB, independent of causality and prediction.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a self-related processing paradigm.
• Employed a shape-label matching task associating 'self', 'friend', and 'stranger' with geometric shapes.
• Administered an IB task measuring perceived action-outcome intervals for unpredictable outcomes.

Main Results:

• Participants reported a shorter perceived interval between action and self-associated outcomes, indicating stronger IB.
• Self-labeling of outcomes led to enhanced IB compared to friend- or stranger-associated outcomes.
• The observed IB effect was independent of causality and prediction.

Conclusions:

• Self-association with outcomes significantly enhances intentional binding (IB).
• Postdictive mechanisms likely play a crucial role in self-associated IB.
• Self-related processing contributes to a sense of agency, separate from causal inference.