Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2011 Nov;23(11):3620-36. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00052. Epub 2011 May 12.
Judgments of agency refer to people's self-reflective assessments concerning their own control: their assessments of the extent to which they themselves are responsible for an action. These self-reflective metacognitive judgments can be distinguished from action monitoring, which involves the detection of the divergence (or lack of divergence) between observed states and expected states. Presumably, people form judgments of agency by metacognitively reflecting on the output of their action monitoring and then consciously inferring the extent to which they caused the action in question. Although a number of previous imaging studies have been directed at action monitoring, none have assessed judgments of agency as a potentially separate process. The present fMRI study used an agency paradigm that not only allowed us to examine the brain activity associated with action monitoring but that also enabled us to investigate those regions associated with metacognition of agency. Regarding action monitoring, we found that being "out of control" during the task (i.e., detection of a discrepancy between observed and expected states) was associated with increased brain activity in the right TPJ, whereas being "in control" was associated with increased activity in the pre-SMA, rostral cingulate zone, and dorsal striatum (regions linked to self-initiated action). In contrast, when participants made self-reflective metacognitive judgments about the extent of their own control (i.e., judgments of agency) compared with when they made judgments that were not about control (i.e., judgments of performance), increased activity was observed in the anterior PFC, a region associated with self-reflective processing. These results indicate that action monitoring is dissociable from people's conscious self-attributions of control.
他们对自己对某个行为负责的程度的评估。这些自我反思的元认知判断可以与行动监控区分开来，行动监控涉及检测观察到的状态与预期状态之间的差异（或缺乏差异）。据推测，人们通过元认知地反思行动监测的输出，然后有意识地推断他们在多大程度上引起了所讨论的行动，从而形成能动性判断。尽管之前有许多成像研究都针对行动监控，但没有一项研究评估能动性判断是否是一个潜在的独立过程。本 fMRI 研究使用了一种能动性范式，不仅允许我们检查与行动监控相关的大脑活动，还使我们能够研究与能动性的元认知相关的区域。关于行动监控，我们发现，在任务中“失去控制”（即，检测到观察到的状态与预期状态之间的差异）与右侧 TPJ 中的大脑活动增加有关，而“控制”与前 SMA、额扣带回区和背侧纹状体中的大脑活动增加有关（与自我发起的行动相关的区域）。相比之下，当参与者对自己控制的程度做出自我反思性的元认知判断（即能动性判断）时，与他们对控制之外的事情做出判断（即表现判断）相比，前脑岛（与自我反思性加工相关的区域）的活动增加。这些结果表明，行动监控与人们对自身控制的有意识的自我归因是可分离的。
