Multilayer model of sense of agency

代理感是指一个人正在引起一种行动的感觉。一种对代理感的预测性描述提出，基于传出(运动)信息的感觉预测在产生代理感方面起着关键作用。另一种假说强调后即席推理过程在产生代理感中的关键作用。根据这种说法，当一种思想出现在行动之前的意识中，与行动一致，并且没有明显的其他行动原因伴随时，我们就体验到了代理感。在本研究中，我们将代理感分为两个层面：最基本层面的非概念性和前反思性代理感，以及更细致性层面的概念性和反思性代理判断。结果表明，感觉预测而不是预演和动作效果之间的概念一致性有助于通过感觉衰减测量的代理感觉，而这两个过程都有助于代理判断。进一步的实验发现，当没有形成可靠的前向模型时，概念一致性对代理判断的权重相对较高，而当前向模型能够提供高度可靠的线索时，其他代理线索而不是感觉预测得到的权重较低。这些结果表明，对代理的判断是通过对每个信息源的可靠性进行加权来产生的。

The sense of agency is the sense that one is causing an action. A predictive account of the sense of agency proposes that sensory prediction based on efferent(motor) information plays a critical role in generating the sense of agency. An alternative hypothesis emphasizes a critical role for post-hoc inferential process in generating the sense of agency. According to this account, we experience the sense of agency when a thought appears in consciousness prior to an action, is consistent with the action, and is not accompanied by conspicuous other causes of the action. In this study, we divided the sense of agency into two layers ; non-conceptual and pre-reflective feeling of agency at the most basic level and conceptual and reflective judgment of agency at the more elaborated level. The results showed that sensory prediction rather than conceptual congruency between preview and action-effect contributed to the feeling of agency which was measured by sensory attenuation, whereas both processes contributed to the judgment of agency. Further experiments revealed that conceptual congruency received relatively higher weighting to judgment of agency when reliable forward model was not formed, whereas other cues of agency than sensory prediction received lower weighting when forward model could provide highly reliable cue. These results suggest that the judgment of agency is produced by weighting each source of information according to its reliability.