Agency is the capacity of an entity to act independently in a world. Many previous studies have demonstrated that inanimate objects without human or animal traits are under some circumstances perceived as having features of animate objects and can elicit attribution of mental states like motivation, emotion or intention. There are three main types of cues that evoke attribution of agency: morphological cues (head, face, biomechanical movement), behavioral cues (self-propelled movement, goal-directedness, changes in speed or direction, unpredictability, principle of rational (efficient) action) and communicative cues (interaction). In the current study we focused on examinaton of behavioral irregularity and its role in eliciting agency attribution to simple geometric figures. The aim of this study was to verify whether behavioral irregularity can lead to attribution of agency to irregular object. Two studies were designed to test this possibility. In Study A participants (N=20) watched a sequence of priming videoclips displaying four moving geometric shapes. In every trial one object was automatically selected and participans were asked to evaluate its movement on a seven-point scale. Six attributes related to attribution of agency (animacy, goal-directedness, freedom, dynamism, rationality and...

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20805号 / 医博第4305号 / 新制||医||1025(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 高橋 淳, 教授 古川 壽亮, 教授 小杉 眞司 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

This thesis explored the effects of social exclusion on the sense of control. We indexed the sense of control using the sense of agency. The sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over our actions and the outcomes of those actions. We experience the sense of agency at an implicit, pre-reflective level. In other words, we routinely make movements that impact some sort of change in the environment, and simply just know that our actions cause an effect. Experimentally, we can measure the sense of agency using the intentional binding effect. Intentional binding is a temporal illusion in which we perceive the time between our voluntary action and the outcome of that action to be shorted compared to when the same effect is caused by an involuntary action. We conducted three experiments. In experiment one, we used an episodic memory recall task to prime participants to feel socially excluded or socially included. In experiment two, we used a different manipulation of social exclusion and social inclusion called Cyberball. We found that in both experiments, intentional binding was significantly reduced following social exclusion compared to social inclusion and baseline. In experiment three, we investigated the pre-reflective sense of agency in eating disorders. Eating disorders are highly associated with chronic social exclusion experiences and an altered sense of control in life. We found that individuals with higher eating disorder symptomatology experience a lower sense of agency, compared to healthy individuals. Overall, this thesis is the first to demonstrate that social exclusion has observable effects on the sense of agency. We were able to triangulate these findings using another social exclusion manipulation as well, strengthening our original findings. Lastly, we showed that a disorder characterized, in part, by social exclusion, reduces the sense of agency / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Sense of agency (SoA) is defined as the subjective experience of being in control of our own actions. This attribution of control underpins all human action and is a vital aspect of the experience of being human. This systematic review sought to address whether intentional binding (IB), a proxy of SoA, can be found during observation of other-generated actions. This was done by investigating the current state of research in the field. Past studies are inconclusive in regards to what factors play into the formation of SoA and the motivation behind this review was to provide a conclusion regarding IB from observed actions. The studies featured in this review found that the IB effect was present in different procedures and contexts which highlights the flexible nature of SoA. Most importantly, this systematic review concluded that IB can and does occur during the observation of other-generated actions. Furthermore, this review found that social influence has an effect on SoA in both human- and robot-observations. We also found that the IB effect manifests in the absence of voluntary actions but to a lesser degree. However, the magnitude of the IB effect varied across studies where one found IB to be greater during action observation than self-generated actions, whilst another study found a weaker IB effect for action observation. Finally, this review provides a discussion on theories that best explain this phenomena, the neural evidence behind action observation, and what implications the findings could have for SoA as a whole

abstract: Temporal-order judgments can require integration of self-generated action-events and external sensory information. In a previous study, it was found that participants are biased to perceive one’s own action-events to occur prior to simultaneous external events. This phenomenon, named the “Egocentric Temporal Order Bias”, or ETO bias, was demonstrated as a 67% probability for participants to report self-generated events as occurring prior to simultaneous externally-determined events. These results were interpreted as supporting a feed-forward, constructive model of perception. However, the empirical data could support many potential mechanisms. The present study tests whether the ETO bias is driven by attentional differences, feed-forward predictability, or action. These findings support that participants exhibit a bias due to both feed-forward predictability and action, and a Bayesian analysis supports that these effects are quantitatively unique. Therefore, the results indicate that the ETO bias is largely driven by one’s own action, over and above feed-forward predictability. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2020

As social creatures, our social encounters matter. They matter for how we experience the world, as well as ourselves. The role of psycho-social experiences has recently been recognized in the neurocognitive literature on the sense of agency. Defined as the experience of control over one’s actions and outcomes, researchers have begun exploring how social interactions and contextual cues modulate this experience, using an implicit task known as intentional binding. This task claims to capture the sense of agency by assessing differences in perception of time across conditions that are theoretically considered to be higher in sense of agency as compared to those that are lower. Drawing inspiration from this new literature, this thesis explores, across five studies, the impact of different psycho-social experiences, particularly those related to stigmatized racial minority groups, on the sense of agency. Our first two studies (n= 36, n=123) indicate that reflection on both negative and positive psycho-social experiences, including racial stigma, bias, and acceptance, reduces the sense of agency, as indexed by lower action-effect interval estimates. Further, our latter three studies (n=45, n=44, n=44), which focus on North American and international samples, suggest that expectations of racial bias reduce the sense of agency and that this reduction is greatest amongst people who experience a threat to their identity because of the event, as well as people who are low-self monitors. Insights from these studies are used to advance neurocognitive and social cognitive work, including psycho-social modulates of intentional binding and psychological mechanisms that affect racial minorities. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / One of the most fascinating aspects of human consciousness is our ability to feel in control of our actions and their outcomes. This experience, better known as a sense of agency, allows us to distinguish our own actions from others and feel responsible for the events we cause in the world. As an important psychological phenomenon, many researchers have taken an interest in understanding how this experience is shaped within our subjective minds. This work has revealed that individual characteristics, as well as social/environmental processes, can affect the sense of agency, at times, even disrupting/impairing the experience. Extending these early findings, this thesis aims to explore the role of psycho-social factors, namely, racial stigma, on the sense of agency. Across five experiments, we reveal that race-based experiences, including perceived and expected racial bias as well as racial acceptance, decrease the sense of agency. With replication and further inquiry, these studies have important implications for the neurocognitive and social-cognitive literature, as well as society at large.