What am I doing? It depends: agency and action identification

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Motor Control

Background:

• Actions are described at various levels, from abstract goals to concrete movements.
• The relationship between action identification level and the subjective experience of agency remains an area of investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how different levels of action identification influence the sense of agency.
• To examine the effects of manipulating higher-level (memory) and lower-level (motor) task difficulties on agency and performance.

Main Methods:

• A hierarchical typing task was designed, involving memorizing letter sequences and moving a cursor to letter targets.
• Lower-level difficulty was manipulated by target size (large/small).
• Higher-level difficulty was manipulated by sequence type (constant/random).

Main Results:

• Both higher-level and lower-level task difficulties affected participants' sense of agency and how they identified their actions.
• Interactive effects between higher-level and lower-level difficulties were observed, influencing task performance.

Conclusions:

• The level at which actions are identified significantly modulates the experience of agency.
• Task difficulty at multiple hierarchical levels interactively impacts both agency and performance, offering insights into action control.