ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 9;8(1):196. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-18492-7.
Embodiment and agency are key aspects of how we perceive ourselves that have typically been associated with independent mechanisms. Recent work, however, has suggested that these mechanisms are related. The sense of agency arises from recognising a causal influence on the external world. This influence is typically realised through bodily movements and thus the perception of the bodily self could also be crucial for agency. We investigated whether a key index of agency - intentional binding - was modulated by body-specific information. Participants judged the interval between pressing a button and a subsequent tone. We used virtual reality to manipulate two aspects of movement feedback. First, form: participants viewed a virtual hand or sphere. Second, movement congruency: the viewed object moved congruently or incongruently with the participant's hidden hand. Both factors, form and movement congruency, significantly influenced embodiment. However, only movement congruency influenced intentional binding. Binding was increased for congruent compared to incongruent movement feedback irrespective of form. This shows that the comparison between viewed and performed movements provides an important cue for agency, whereas body-specific visual form does not. We suggest that embodiment and agency mechanisms both depend on comparisons across sensorimotor signals but that they are influenced by distinct factors.
体现和机构是我们感知自己的关键方面，通常与独立的机制相关联。然而，最近的工作表明这些机制是相关的。机构感源于认识到对外部世界的因果影响。这种影响通常是通过身体运动来实现的，因此对身体自我的感知也可能对机构至关重要。我们研究了机构的一个关键指标——意图绑定是否受到身体特定信息的调节。参与者判断按下按钮和随后的音调之间的时间间隔。我们使用虚拟现实来操纵运动反馈的两个方面。首先，形式：参与者看到一个虚拟的手或球体。其次，运动一致性：被观察的物体与参与者隐藏的手一致或不一致地移动。这两个因素，形式和运动一致性，都显著影响了体现。然而，只有运动一致性影响了意图绑定。与不一致的运动反馈相比，一致的运动反馈增加了绑定。这表明，在视图和执行运动之间进行比较提供了机构的重要线索，而身体特定的视觉形式则没有。我们认为，体现和机构机制都依赖于感觉运动信号之间的比较，但它们受到不同因素的影响。
