Les bénéfices engendrés par l’utilisation croissante de l’automatisation masquent un problème fondamental. En cas de pannes ou de situations imprévues, les opérateurs présentent souvent des difficultés dans la reprise en main de tels systèmes. Le but de cette thèse était d’étudier comment le cadre théorique de l’agentivité pouvait nous aider à identifier et évaluer les informations requises pour rendre la supervision de systèmes fortement automatisés plus efficace, pour restaurer un sentiment de contrôle approprié et pour augmenter l’acceptabilité du système par les opérateurs. Pour y parvenir, nous avons réalisé quatre expériences lors desquelles les participants devaient superviser le vol d’un avion sous pilote automatique. Dans un premier temps, nous avons montré que fournir des informations sur les intentions du système augmentait le sentiment de contrôle des participants. Cependant, ce gain d’information ne nous a pas permis d’observer le phénomène de liage intentionnel. Nous avons également trouvé que cette information entraînait de meilleures performances pour détecter des décisions non-optimales du système, conduisait à un changement dans la façon dont les participants allouaient leurs ressources attentionnelles et aussi augmentait le niveau d’acceptabilité du système. De façon intéressante, nous avons également montré dans la dernière expérience que le délai entre l’apparition de l’information sur les intentions du système et l’implémentation de son action impactait différemment la performance et les sentiments de contrôle et d’acceptabilité des opérateurs. / Human operators seem often helpless to takeover an automated system in case of failure. This "out-of-the-loop” problem occurs when an operator is unable to understand the intentions and to predict the outcome of actions of the system. The goal of this thesis was to study how the theoretical framework of agency can help identifying and evaluating the information required to make supervision of fully automated systems more efficient, to restore an appropriate sense of control and to increase the user acceptance of what the system is doing. To achieve this goal, we tested participants in four aircraft supervision tasks. We first showed that providing greater information about the system’s intentions increased the participants' sense of control. However, this condition did not produce any change in a frequently-used implicit marker of the sense of agency, the so-called “intentional binding effect”. We also found that this information led to better performances in detecting when the system’s decisions were non-optimal, to a change in the way participants allocated their attentional resources and also to increase the level of user acceptance. Interestingly, we also showed in the last experiment that the delay between prime messages providing information about the system's intentions and the system's actions impacted differently the performance and the operator's levels of control and acceptance. In the last section, we discuss the implications of our results for the field of human-machine interaction. We claim that the science of agency may be useful to elaborate concrete recommendations for designing automatic systems in which operators remain "in the loop" of control.

Body ownership can be studied via the rubber hand illusion (RHI), in which an artificial limb can be perceived as belonging to oneself. In the so-called moving RHI paradigm, both body ownership and sense of agency, induced by self-produced movements, can be investigated. The key question of this approach is whether movements generated by oneself increase the illusion of body ownership. Thus far, the results from moving RHI studies are inconsistent.This has led to uncertainty regarding the influences of the motor control mechanism on body ownership. Therefore, this study will present the first meta-analysis on moving RHI to estimate the illusory effectiveness induced by self-produced movements. A total of 23 experimental comparisons with 821 subjects were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed that the overall illusory effect induced by self-produced movements was superior toits control (e.g., asynchronous active movements) (Hedge’s g = 1.38, p < 0.001). However, due to dissimilarity in results between the studies, the sample size in the meta-analysis may not represent the general population. The subgroup analysis showed that studies using physical hands, such as wooden hands, yielded the largest effect compared to studies using a virtual projected hand or a video recorded image of the participant’s own hands. It can be speculated whether a three-dimensional hand with “realness” has an illusory advantage compared to hands presented in virtual or video image settings. Future studies need to apply aunified framework, particularly in experimental setups and measurements. This would obtain consistent results of the strength of the illusion within the moving RHI paradigm.

The rubber hand illusion is an experimental paradigm that induces the illusion of ownership over a fake hand. The illusion was originally induced using visuotactile stimulation but can also be induced using movements. Self-produced movements are active movements, and if they are produced by external force, they are passive movements. According to the comparator model, only active movements produce a sense of agency. As both passive and active movements can be used to induce the sense of ownership in the rubber hand illusion, but only active induce a sense of agency, they can be compared to determine the effect agency has on bodily ownership. This meta-analysis included nine studies with a total of 359 participants that compared the induced sense of ownership using active and passive movements in the rubber hand illusion to determine these effects. The results show that agency has a small but significant effect on body ownership.

Agency has yet to see an in-depth discovery within Human Computer Interaction (HCI). It has and still is the subject of research, however, work is still needed to understand what agency in HCI is, on a fundamental level. Theory from different fields provide a foundation with the goal of discovering agency and what it can contribute to design. In this thesis, agency’s foundation in philosophy is explored along with contributions of agency in interaction design. Topics on agency within HCI are used to further nuance understanding of how designers can use perception of agency, both in the user and the artifact, in their design practice. A phenomenological view on agency in interaction design is used, building on Actor Network Theory. Furthermore, nuances of influence, disable, opaqueness, and imperative are presented, explored empirically and put in relation to theory on agency within HCI.

Stimuli caused by our own voluntary actions receive a special treatment in the brain. In auditory processing, the N1 and/or P2 components of the auditory event-related brain potential (ERP) to self-initiated sounds are attenuated compared to passive sound exposure, which has been interpreted as an indicator of a predictive internal forward mechanism. Such a predictive mechanism enables differentiating the sensory consequences of one´s own actions from other sensory input and allows the mind to attribute actions to agents and particularly to the self, usually called the “sense of agency”. However, the notion that N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects to self-initiated sounds reflect internal forward model predictions is still controversial. Furthermore, little is known about the relationship between N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects and the sense of agency. Thus, the aim of the present thesis was to further investigate the nature of the N1 and/or P2 attenuation effect to self-initiated sounds and to examine its specific relationship to the sense of agency. The present thesis provides evidence that N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects to self-initiated sounds are mainly determined by movement intention and predictive internal motor signals involved in movement planning and rules out non-predictive explanations of these effects. Importantly, it is shown that sensory attenuation effects in audition are directly related to the feeling of agency, but occur independent of agency judgments. Taken together, the present thesis supports the assumptions of internal forward model theories.

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

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.

Das Gefühl die eigenen Handlungen selbst zu verursachen und deren Konsequenzen zu kontrollieren, ist ein wesentlicher Bestandteil unserer Selbstwahrnehmung und wird als Erleben von Urheberschaft oder Autorenschaft bezeichnet. Die zugrunde liegenden neurokognitiven Mechanismen sind bislang nur unzureichend verstanden. In zwei Experimenten zur Handlungswahrnehmung wurde bei gesunden Probanden mittels Elektroenzephalogramm (EEG) die Hirnaktivität auf visuelles Handlungsfeedback erfasst. Reduzierte neuronale Aktivität (sensorische Attenuierung) auf selbst versus extern generiertes Feedback wurde als implizites Maß für das Erleben von Urheberschaft verwendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass das Ausmaß der neuronalen Attenuierung stärker von der Präsenz einer Handlung sowie vorausgehenden Hinweisreizen abhing, als von präzisen Vorhersagen durch spezifische Kontingenzregeln. Die explizite Beurteilung der eigenen Urheberschaft dagegen beruhte primär auf hoher Kontingenz von Handlung und Feedback, während externe Hinweisreize nur in Kontexten herangezogen wurden, in denen Kontingenzinformationen nicht ausreichten. Eine dritte EEG Studie untersuchte Patienten mit Zwangsstörung, welche durch abweichendes Erleben der Vollendung und Urheberschaft für Handlungsergebnisse gekennzeichnet ist. Die Ergebnisse zeigten eine fehlende neuronale Attenuierung selbst generierter Handlungskonsequenzen bei Zwangspatienten. Verkörperte Signale wurden dabei weniger stark genutzt für Vorhersagen des Handlungsfeedbacks. Zusammenfassend trägt die vorliegende Arbeit zur Validierung der sensorischen Attenuierung als implizites Maß des Erlebens von Urheberschaft bei. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Erleben von Urheberschaft auf einer Integration multipler verkörperter und externer, kontextueller Hinweisreize beruht. Dieser Integrationsmechanismus scheint bei Zwangspatienten gestört zu sein und führt möglicherweise zu dem mangelnden Gefühl von Handlungsabschluss und Urheberschaft. / The experience of causing and controlling one s own actions and their consequences is a major aspect of our self-awareness, which has been termed sense of agency or experience of authorship. The underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms are still not well understood. In two consecutive experiments on action awareness, the electroencephalogram (EEG) of healthy participants was recorded to measure brain activity related to the perception of visual feedback. Reduced neuronal activity (sensory attenuation) in response to self- versus externally generated feedback was taken as an implicit measure for the sense of agency. The results showed that the amount of sensory attenuation was primarily determined by the mere presence of an action and external cues independent of highly precise predictions based on specific contingency rules. Explicit judgments of agency, in contrast, were mainly determined by high degrees of contingency between action and feedback, and external cues had an influence only in ambiguous contexts where contingency information was not reliable enough. A third EEG study investigated patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is characterized by lacking a sense of completion and agency for action outcomes. The results of this study revealed that OCD patients fail to suppress the consequences of their own action. Embodied signals were used less by patients for making specific predictions of the action feedback. In conclusion, the present work offers validation of sensory attenuation as an implicit measure of non-conceptual agency experience, and provides evidence that the sense of agency is based on an optimal integration of multiple embodied and external, contextual cues. Moreover, the present research reveals for the first time, to our knowledge - reduced gating of extracorporeal sensory action consequences in patients suffering from OCD, which may explain aberrant feelings of action completion and agency in these patients.

Stimuli caused by our own voluntary actions receive a special treatment in the brain. In auditory processing, the N1 and/or P2 components of the auditory event-related brain potential (ERP) to self-initiated sounds are attenuated compared to passive sound exposure, which has been interpreted as an indicator of a predictive internal forward mechanism. Such a predictive mechanism enables differentiating the sensory consequences of one´s own actions from other sensory input and allows the mind to attribute actions to agents and particularly to the self, usually called the “sense of agency”. However, the notion that N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects to self-initiated sounds reflect internal forward model predictions is still controversial. Furthermore, little is known about the relationship between N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects and the sense of agency. Thus, the aim of the present thesis was to further investigate the nature of the N1 and/or P2 attenuation effect to self-initiated sounds and to examine its specific relationship to the sense of agency. The present thesis provides evidence that N1 and/or P2 attenuation effects to self-initiated sounds are mainly determined by movement intention and predictive internal motor signals involved in movement planning and rules out non-predictive explanations of these effects. Importantly, it is shown that sensory attenuation effects in audition are directly related to the feeling of agency, but occur independent of agency judgments. Taken together, the present thesis supports the assumptions of internal forward model theories.

Cette thèse repose sur l’idée que les individus prennent des décisions en assignant des valeurs aux conséquences appétitives (récompenses) et aversives (punitions) associées aux différentes options proposées, puis comparent ces valeurs pour sélectionner l’une d’elles. Dans la plupart des cas, ces valeurs sont apprises par essais et erreurs. En neuroscience et neuro-économie, il a été proposé que le cerveau représente ces valeurs de manière abstraite dans une échelle de valeur commune indépendante de la nature des conséquences attendues. Cette hypothèse est soutenue par un grand nombre d’études qui se sont intéressées à l’évaluation et à l’apprentissage des récompenses. Ces études mettent en évidence une implication du mésencéphale, du striatum et du cortex préfrontal dans le traitement de récompense primaires, monétaires, morales ou sociales. Beaucoup moins de travaux se sont intéressés au traitement des punitions. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc de comparer les corrélats cérébraux des processus d’évaluation des stimuli appétitifs et aversifs. Dans un premier temps nous avons utilisé un paradigme d’apprentissage par conditionnement pavlovien pour comparer les régions cérébrales impliquées dans la représentation de l’erreur de prédiction au cours de l’apprentissage avec des récompenses et des punitions gustatives, visuelles et monétaires. Ensuite nous nous sommes intéressés aux régions cérébrales impliquées dans traitement de récompenses et punitions plus abstraites tel que l’approbation sociale ou les considérations morales, dans un contexte de prise de décision pro-sociale. Ces études nous ont permis de démontrer que l’erreur de prédiction et l’évaluation liées à des stimuli appétitifs et aversifs étaient, en partie, sous-tendus par des réseaux cérébraux communs. / There is a growing consensus in behavioral neuroscience and neuroeconomic that individuals make decisions by assigning values to different options and comparing them to make a choice. Most often, these values are acquired on the basis of trial and error learning. A long-held view is that the brain assigns values to the different goods using an abstract signal that is encoded in a common currency. Multiple studies have found evidence for such value signals in midbrain, striatum and prefrontal cortex during learning or decision making involving primary or secondary rewards. An important open question is whether aversive outcomes expectation and learning engage the same or different valuation networks. The goal of this thesis is thus to compare the brain network involved in appetitive and aversive stimuli valuation. First we used a pavlovian conditioning paradigm to compare the cerebral correlates of prediction error during learning with gustative, visual and monetary rewards and punishments. Second, we investigated the brain regions involved in moral and social rewards and punishments in prosocial decision making. Overall, we found that prediction error and valuation related to appetitive and aversive stimuli are processed in part by common brain networks.