Yoshie Michiko, Haggard Patrick
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK; Department of Psychiatry, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, Brighton BN1 9RR, UK; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 8 Ichibancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8472, Japan; Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Curr Biol. 2013 Oct 21;23(20):2028-32. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.08.034. Epub 2013 Oct 3.
Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the feeling that one's voluntary actions produce external sensory events [1, 2]. Several psychological theories hypothesized links between SoA and affective evaluation [3-6]. For example, people tend to attribute positive outcomes to their own actions, perhaps reflecting high-level narrative processes that enhance self-esteem [3]. Here we provide the first evidence that such emotional modulations also involve changes in the low-level sensorimotor basis of agency. The intentional binding paradigm [1] was used to quantify the subjective temporal compression between a voluntary action and its sensory consequences, providing an implicit measure of SoA. Emotional valence of action outcomes was manipulated by following participants' key-press actions with negative or positive emotional vocalizations [7], or neutral sounds. We found that intentional binding was reduced for negative compared to positive or neutral outcomes. Discriminant analyses identified a change in time perception of both actions and their negative outcomes, demonstrating that the experience of action itself is subject to affective modulation. A small binding benefit was also found for positive action outcomes. Emotional modulation of SoA may contribute to regulating social behavior. Correctly tracking the valenced effects of one's voluntary actions on other people could underlie successful social interactions.
能动感（SoA）是指一种感觉，即一个人的自愿行动会产生外部感官事件[1,2]。几种心理学理论假设了能动感与情感评价之间的联系[3-6]。例如，人们倾向于将积极结果归因于自己的行动，这可能反映了增强自尊的高级叙事过程[3]。在此，我们提供了首个证据，表明这种情绪调节也涉及能动感的低水平感觉运动基础的变化。使用意向性绑定范式[1]来量化自愿行动与其感官后果之间的主观时间压缩，从而提供对能动感的一种隐性测量。通过在参与者按键行动之后跟随发出消极或积极的情绪发声[7]或中性声音，来操纵行动结果的情绪效价。我们发现，与积极或中性结果相比，消极结果的意向性绑定减少。判别分析确定了行动及其消极结果的时间感知都发生了变化，这表明行动本身的体验也受到情感调节。对于积极的行动结果，还发现了一个小的绑定益处。能动感的情绪调节可能有助于调节社会行为。正确追踪一个人的自愿行动对他人产生的效价效应可能是成功社会互动的基础。
