Affective Grounding of Sense of Agency and Action Regulation (AffAct)

为了达到我们的目标，我们需要能够判断我们的行为是否能够成功地影响我们的环境。能动感是一种控制自己行为及其效果的感觉。能动性的体验对于自我决定的行为至关重要。这是人类自我的最小自我表征的一个关键方面，DFG优先计划“积极的自我”试图调查。当我们试图达到理想状态或避免负面后果时，能动性是最重要的。例如，我们经常依靠积极和消极的反馈来推断我们是否能够成功地控制我们的环境。因此，能动感被认为与行动结果的情感加工有关。然而，大多数以前的研究项目调查的感官或认知的决定因素，没有任何情感价值的代理经验。因此，行动效果的情感效价在多大程度上对能动感起着功能性作用，目前还不清楚。这个项目的目标是为一个科学模型奠定基础，该模型可以预测代理经验和情感处理如何相互影响，以及在多大程度上影响自我决定的行为。基于我们先前对能动感、情感加工和行为调节的研究，我们将研究：（a）能动感如何调节情感反馈的加工;（B）情感加工中与能动性相关的变化如何影响我们的自我调节行为的能力;（c）在何种情况下情感信息决定了能动体验的出现。我们的项目将结合联合收割机脑电图测量的神经过程相关的情感和感觉处理与实验操作的机构经验和行动调节。通过这种方式，我们的目标是有助于DFG优先计划“积极的自我”，阐明情感处理作为一个潜在的核心机制，在目标导向的行动中的自我意识。

To reach our goals we need to be able to tell whether our actions can successfully influence our environment. Sense of agency is the feeling of being in control of one’s actions and their effects. The experience of agency is vital for self-determined behavior. It is a key aspect of the minimal self-representation in humans, of the human self, which the DFG Priority Program „Active Self” seeks to investigate. Agency is most important when we try to reach desirable states or avoid negative consequences. For example, we often rely on positive and negative feedback to infer if we can successfully control our environment. Therefore, sense of agency is assumed to be bound to the affective processing of action outcomes. However, most previous research projects investigated sensory or cognitive determinants of agency experience without any affective value. As a result, it is still not clear in how far the affective valence of action effects plays a functional role for sense of agency. The goal of this project is to lay the groundwork for a scientific model which can predict how agency experience and affective processing influence each other, and in how far this impacts self-determined behavior. Based on our previous work on sense of agency, affective processing, and action regulation we will investigate a) how the sense of agency modulates the processing of affective feedback, b) how agency-related changes in affective processing influence our ability to self-regulate behavior, and c) under which circumstances affective information determines the emergence of agency experience. Our project will combine EEG measurements of neural processes related to affective and sensory processing with experimental manipulations of agency experience and action regulation. In this way we aim to contribute to the DFG Priority Program “The Active Self”, by elucidating affective processing as one potential core mechanism underlying the sense of self during goal-directed actions.