I move, therefore I am: A new theoretical framework to investigate agency and ownership

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe neurocognitive structure of the acting self has recently been widely studied, yet is still perplexing and remains an often confounded issue in cognitive neuroscience, psychopathology and philosophy. We provide a new systematic account of two of its main features, the sense of agency and the sense of ownership, demonstrating that although both features appear as phenomenally uniform, they each in fact are complex crossmodal phenomena of largely heterogeneous functional and (self-)representational levels. These levels can be arranged within a gradually evolving, onto-and phylogenetically plausible framework which proceeds from basic non-conceptual sensorimotor processes to more complex conceptual and meta-representational processes of agency and ownership, respectively. In particular, three fundamental levels of agency and ownership processing have to be distinguished: The level of feeling, thinking and social interaction. This naturalistic account will not only allow to ''ground the self in action", but also provide an empirically testable taxonomy for cognitive neuroscience and a new tool for disentangling agency and ownership disturbances in psychopathology (e.g. alien hand, anarchic hand, anosognosia for one's own hemiparesis).

Self-related awareness and emotion regulation

“…The amygdalar nuclei are known to be functionally involved in emotion processing (Baxter and Murray, 2002;LeDoux, 2000). Amygdala activation has been reported to be associated with fear (LeDoux, 2000;Phelps et al, 2001;Vuilleumier et al, 2001), but also with pleasant emotional stimuli and reward-related processing (Baxter and Murray, 2002;Synofzik et al, 2008). These and other findings lend support to the view that attributes the amygdalar function to have a more general role in emotion processing such as in emotional arousal and emotion intensity without valence specificity (Anderson et al, 2003).…”

Anarchic hand with abnormal agency following right inferior parietal lobe damage: a case report

“…Thus, damage to the inferior parietal lobe might result in poor motor awareness and abnormal agency ratings even when low-level signals of sensorimotor incongruence are present, because such signals are not able to engage parietal areas responsible for conscious (veridical) motor 14 awareness. Support for this explanation can be found in recent theoretical models of agency (Synofzik et al, 2008), which propose that agency involves a low-level feeling and a higher-level judgment of agency. What is more, this idea is supported by recent neuropsychological (e.g.…”

“…In healthy controls, evidence for a dissociation between agency and body ownership has been somewhat contentious, with some studies supporting the independence of these components (Kalckert & Ehrsson, 2012;Tsakiris et al, 2010), while others suggest some degree of shared relationship (Tsakiris, Prabhu & Haggard, 2006;Balslev, Nielsen, Lund, Law & Paulson, 2006). Accounts of anarchic hand are equally controversial, as some researchers regard personification of the limb to indicate a deficit in ownership (Doody & Jankovic, 1992), while others propose that personification reflects a selective deficit in agency and not ownership (Synofzik et al, 2008). Our results support the suggestion that agency and ownership are distinct processes, since changes in agency were observed independent of (stable albeit poor) ownership of the anarchic hand.…”

“…Although AHS often involves a failure to inhibit actions elicited by external cues (Frith et al, 2000;Kritikos et al, 2005;Riddoch et al, 2001), in at least some instances (e.g. the parietal-type described here) AHS can involve abnormal agency (see Synofzik et al, 2008). In fact, damage to the SMA, which is a frequent cause of AHS, has been found to underlie an implicit sense of agency (see Kühn et al, 2013;Moore, Ruge, Wenke, Rothwell & Haggard, 2010).…”

“…the sense that I am the author or controller of my actions), and body ownership (i.e. the sense that my body belongs to me; see also Synofzik, Vosgerau & Newen, 2008 for further discussion). Thus, alien hand currently describes a disturbance of body ownership, while AHS refers to a disturbance of the agency system deficit in the sense of agency.…”