Age(ncy) differences: Age-related changes in the use of sense of agency cues

Sense of Agency (SoA) is the experience of control over one's actions and, through them, events in the outside world. Experimental research indicates that SoA is inferred based on different agency cues. We investigated whether younger (18-28 years) and older (65-75 years) adults differ in their use of three of these cues, namely action-effect congruency, affective valence of the effect, and temporal relation between action and effect. In an experiment, participants first learned to associate keypresses with positively and negatively valenced effects (positive or negative smileys). Subsequently, participants performed the same keypresses. Keypresses were, after different intervals, followed by positive or negative smileys. Smileys were either congruent or incongruent with the previously acquired action-effect associations. Participants were told that the occurrence of a smiley was either caused by their keypress or was automatically generated by the computer independent of their keypress. In each trial, participants indicated how sure they are that they caused the effect (authorship rating). Authorship ratings were higher for congruent than for incongruent effects and for positively than for negatively valenced effects in both age groups. This indicates that the use of action-effect congruency and affective valence of the effect as agency cues are age-independent. Authorship ratings decreased with increasing action-effect interval in younger adults, but not in older adults. This indicates that older adults may rely less on temporal cues, presumably due to age-related differences in cue integration. In conclusion, temporal agency cues are used differently across different age groups.