A Novel Paradigm for Assessing the Sense of Agency: Combining Intentional Binding with the Kappa Effect

Christensen, Asbjørn Kvist

4. term

Psychology, Master

2024

2024-05-29

51 pages

The Sense of Agency (SoA) is the experience that one’s intentions have an effect on the external world, which is vital for successfully experiencing contingency between one’s intentions and actions. When SoA is aberrant it can cause a lack of coherence in the self, inducing symptoms such as will-, thought- and motor interference as observed in schizophrenia. A perceived contraction of time between intentional action and a subsequent sensory consequence, known as intentional binding, has been suggested as a measure of SoA. Unfortunately, previous measures of intentional binding contain a range of methodological issues including being susceptible to demand characteristics, being complex to perform, demanding divided attention, and being prone to several biases and confounding variables. To circumvent these issues a novel paradigm is suggested, which combines a paradigm of intentional binding with the Kappa effect, a perceptual phenomenon, where the spatial distance between two events affects the temporal perception between them. This novel paradigm was tested on 35 participants. The results showed that intentional binding was found for the group of participants that was administered the Intentional condition first, but not for the group that was administered the Non-intentional condition first, while the Kappa effect was found for neither. Additionally, it was found that participants in most conditions reported experienced agency of the expected sensory events, though this did not apply in the Intentional condition for the group that was administered the Intentional condition first. It was also investigated whether the reported amount of agency and the actual ability to detect control correlated with intentional binding, but the results showed that this was not the case. In conclusion, this novel paradigm did not prove to be a reliable measure of SoA, as it failed to reliably elicit an effect of intentional binding. Additionally, this novel paradigm does not control for one important confounding variable: perceived causality of sensory events, which plausibly affects the phenomenon of intentional binding to some extent. Furthermore, the lack of a correlation suggests that one single measure of SoA cannot capture the entirety of SoA. Future studies should be concerned with resolving the lack of intentional binding in one group and the lack of the Kappa effect in both groups, with investigating the extent to which perceived causality affects intentional binding, and with developing a more comprehensive protocol to assess SoA that does not rely solely on one measure.

The Sense of Agency (SoA) is the experience that one’s intentions have an effect on the external world, which is vital for successfully experiencing contingency between one’s intentions and actions. When SoA is aberrant it can cause a lack of coherence in the self, inducing symptoms such as will-, thought- and motor interference as observed in schizophrenia. A perceived contraction of time between intentional action and a subsequent sensory consequence, known as intentional binding, has been suggested as a measure of SoA. Unfortunately, previous measures of intentional binding contain a range of methodological issues including being susceptible to demand characteristics, being complex to perform, demanding divided attention, and being prone to several biases and confounding variables. To circumvent these issues a novel paradigm is suggested, which combines a paradigm of intentional binding with the Kappa effect, a perceptual phenomenon, where the spatial distance between two events affects the temporal perception between them. This novel paradigm was tested on 35 participants. The results showed that intentional binding was found for the group of participants that was administered the Intentional condition first, but not for the group that was administered the Non-intentional condition first, while the Kappa effect was found for neither. Additionally, it was found that participants in most conditions reported experienced agency of the expected sensory events, though this did not apply in the Intentional condition for the group that was administered the Intentional condition first. It was also investigated whether the reported amount of agency and the actual ability to detect control correlated with intentional binding, but the results showed that this was not the case. In conclusion, this novel paradigm did not prove to be a reliable measure of SoA, as it failed to reliably elicit an effect of intentional binding. Additionally, this novel paradigm does not control for one important confounding variable: perceived causality of sensory events, which plausibly affects the phenomenon of intentional binding to some extent. Furthermore, the lack of a correlation suggests that one single measure of SoA cannot capture the entirety of SoA. Future studies should be concerned with resolving the lack of intentional binding in one group and the lack of the Kappa effect in both groups, with investigating the extent to which perceived causality affects intentional binding, and with developing a more comprehensive protocol to assess SoA that does not rely solely on one measure.

Sense of Agency ; Intentional Binding ; Kappa Effect

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