Intentional action and limitation of personal autonomy. Do restrictions of action selection decrease the sense of...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• Personal autonomy is crucial for the experience of being an intentional agent.
• The sense of agency, or the feeling of control over one's actions, is a fundamental aspect of human experience.
• Intentional binding, the perceived temporal compression between an action and its effect, is a key index of the implicit sense of agency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether manipulating personal autonomy affects the intentional binding effect.
• To determine if limiting the ability to choose actions or their timing impacts the sense of agency.
• To explore the relationship between personal autonomy and the implicit sense of agency.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments utilized the Libet clock paradigm.
• Participants judged the timing of their actions (key presses) and their resulting effects (auditory stimuli).
• Conditions varied in the degree of autonomy participants had over action selection and timing (none, partial, full).

Main Results:

• A moderate to strong intentional binding effect was consistently observed across all experimental conditions.
• No significant influence of personal autonomy on the magnitude of intentional binding was found.
• The degree of control over action selection and timing did not alter the perceived temporal link between action and effect.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest that personal autonomy does not modulate the intentional binding effect.
• Impaired autonomy in action selection and timing does not diminish the implicit sense of agency as measured by intentional binding.
• This research contributes to understanding the complex relationship between volition, agency, and goal-directed behavior.