Morsella Ezequiel, Berger Christopher C, Krieger Stepehen C
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA; Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Neurocase. 2011 Jun;17(3):209-30. doi: 10.1080/13554794.2010.504727. Epub 2010 Sep 9.
A primary aspect of the self is the sense of agency – the sense that one is causing an action. In the spirit of recent reductionistic approaches to other complex, multifaceted phenomena (e.g., working memory; cf. Johnson &Johnson, 2009), we attempt to unravel the sense of agency by investigating its most basic components, without invoking high-level conceptual or 'central executive' processes. After considering the high-level components of agency, we examine the cognitive and neural underpinnings of its low-level components, which include basic consciousness and subjective urges (e.g., the urge to breathe when holding one's breath). Regarding urges, a quantitative review revealed that certain inter-representational dynamics (conflicts between action plans, as when holding one's breath) reliably engender fundamental aspects both of the phenomenology of agency and of 'something countering the will of the self'. The neural correlates of such dynamics, for both primordial urges (e.g., air hunger) and urges elicited in laboratory interference tasks, are entertained. In addition, we discuss the implications of this unique perspective for the study of disorders involving agency.
自我的一个主要方面是能动感——即认为自己在引发一个行动的感觉。本着近期对其他复杂、多面现象（如工作记忆；参见约翰逊和约翰逊，2009）采取的还原论方法的精神，我们试图通过研究能动感最基本的组成部分来解开它，而不涉及高级概念或“中央执行”过程。在考虑了能动性的高级组成部分之后，我们考察其低级组成部分的认知和神经基础，这些低级组成部分包括基本意识和主观冲动（如在屏气时的呼吸冲动）。关于冲动，一项定量综述表明，某些表征间动态（行动计划之间的冲突，如屏气时）可靠地产生了能动性现象学以及“与自我意志相悖之物”的基本方面。本文探讨了这种动态的神经关联，既涉及原始冲动（如空气饥饿感），也涉及在实验室干扰任务中引发的冲动。此外，我们讨论了这种独特视角对涉及能动性的障碍研究的意义。
