Kaiser Jakob, Buciuman Madalina, Gigl Sandra, Gentsch Antje, Schütz-Bosbach Simone
LMU Munich, Department of Psychology, General and Experimental Psychology, Munich, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Sep 16;12:716220. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.716220. eCollection 2021.
Sense of agency is the feeling of being in control of one's actions and their perceivable effects. Most previous research identified cognitive or sensory determinants of agency experience. However, it has been proposed that sense of agency is also bound to the processing of affective information. For example, during goal-directed actions or instrumental learning we often rely on positive feedback (e.g., rewards) or negative feedback (e.g., error messages) to determine our level of control over the current task. Nevertheless, we still lack a scientific model which adequately explains the relation between affective processing and sense of agency. In this article, we review current empirical findings on how affective information modulates agency experience, and, conversely, how sense of agency changes the processing of affective action outcomes. Furthermore, we discuss in how far agency-related changes in affective processing might influence the ability to enact cognitive control and action regulation during goal-directed behavior. A preliminary model is presented for describing the interplay between sense of agency, affective processing, and action regulation. We propose that affective processing could play a role in mediating the influence between subjective sense of agency and the objective ability to regulate one's behavior. Thus, determining the interrelation between affective processing and sense of agency will help us to understand the potential mechanistic basis of agency experience, as well as its functional significance for goal-directed behavior.
能动感是指对自身行为及其可感知效果的控制感。此前的大多数研究都确定了能动体验的认知或感官决定因素。然而，有人提出，能动感也与情感信息的处理相关。例如，在目标导向行为或工具性学习过程中，我们常常依靠积极反馈（如奖励）或消极反馈（如错误信息）来确定我们对当前任务的控制程度。尽管如此，我们仍然缺乏一个能充分解释情感处理与能动感之间关系的科学模型。在本文中，我们回顾了当前关于情感信息如何调节能动体验，以及相反地，能动感如何改变情感行为结果处理的实证研究结果。此外，我们还讨论了情感处理中与能动感相关的变化在多大程度上可能会影响目标导向行为中实施认知控制和行为调节的能力。我们提出了一个初步模型来描述能动感、情感处理和行为调节之间的相互作用。我们认为，情感处理可能在介导主观能动感与调节自身行为的客观能力之间的影响方面发挥作用。因此，确定情感处理与能动感之间的相互关系将有助于我们理解能动体验的潜在机制基础，以及其对目标导向行为的功能意义。
