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Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

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Action effect predictions in 'what', 'when', and 'whether' intentional actions.

Wai Ying Chung¹, Álvaro Darriba¹, Betina Korka²

¹Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, F-75006 Paris, France.

|June 26, 2022

Summary

This study found that people predict the effects of their actions, whether they choose what to do, when to act, or whether to act at all. This prediction process appears specific to intentional actions.

Keywords:

Action control Action-effect prediction EEG Ideomotor principle

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychology
Human Action Control

Background:

Intentional action is theorized to involve three components: 'what', 'when', and 'whether'.
Action control theories often assume action-effect prediction, but empirical comparisons across action types are lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate action-effect prediction across the 'what', 'when', and 'whether' components of intentional action.
To determine if action-effect prediction is specific to intentional action.

Main Methods:

Utilized an action-effect prediction paradigm with participants making 'what', 'when', or 'whether' action choices.
Presented predicted (standard) and mispredicted (deviant) tones following action choices.
Analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the P2 component.

Main Results:

A significant P2 difference between standard and deviant tones indicated action-effect prediction formation across all three action components ('what', 'when', 'whether').
This P2 prediction effect was absent in non-action trials within the 'whether' condition.

Conclusions:

Action-effect prediction is a fundamental aspect of intentional action, irrespective of the decision type ('what', 'when', 'whether').
The findings suggest that action-effect prediction is an action-specific process, not merely a general sensory prediction mechanism.