Doing good or bad: How interactions between action and emotion expectations shape the sense of agency
TL;DR: The results show an early interaction between emotion and agency processes, and suggest that self-serving cognition can be grounded in embodied knowledge from low-level sensorimotor mechanisms.
Abstract: The emotional consequences of our own and others' actions can influence our agentive self-awareness in social contexts. Positive outcomes are usually linked to the self and used for self-enhancement, whereas negative outcomes are more often attributed to others. In most situations, these causal attribution tendencies seem to be immediately present instead of involving reflective interpretations of the action experience. To address the question at which level of the cognitive hierarchy emotions and action perception interact, we adopted a social reward anticipation paradigm. Here, participants or their interaction partner received positive or negative action outcomes and performed speeded attribution choices regarding causation of the action outcome. Event-Related Potential (ERP) results showed that the emotional value of an outcome already influenced the classical N1 self-attenuation effect, with reduced embodied agentive self-awareness for negative outcomes at initial sensorimotor stages. At the level of the N300, the degree of updating and affective evaluation associated with the respective attributive decision was reflected and particularly associated to attribution tendencies for positive events. Our results show an early interaction between emotion and agency processes, and suggest that self-serving cognition can be grounded in embodied knowledge from low-level sensorimotor mechanisms.
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TL;DR: Human electrocortical potentials evoked by self-administered auditory and visual stimuli manifest much smaller amplitude and faster poststimulus timing than do average brain responses evokes by identical machine-delivered stimuli.
Abstract: Human electrocortical potentials evoked by self-administered auditory and visual stimuli manifest much smaller amplitude and faster poststimulus timing than do average brain responses evoked by identical machine-delivered stimuli. Auditory evoked potentials show this "self-stimulation effect" to a greater degree than do visual responses. For visual evoked potentials, the effect appears greater at the vertex association area than over the occipital cortex. Individual differences in the magnitude of the "self-stimutlation effect" relate to level of intelligence.
73 citations
TL;DR: Fear or anger reduced the subjective sense of control over an action outcome, even though the objective causal link between action and outcome remained the same.
Abstract: Two recent studies have demonstrated that increases in arousal states lead to an increase people’s sense of agency, i.e., the subjective experience of controlling one’s own voluntary actions (Minohara et al. in Front Psychol 7:1165, 2016; Wen et al. in Conscious Cogn 36:87–95, 2015). We here extend these findings by showing that arousal states with negative emotional valence, such as fear and anger, decrease sense of agency. Anger and fear are negative emotional states. Anecdotally, they are often invoked as reasons for losing control, and neuroscientific evidence confirms important effects on the brain’s action control systems. Surprisingly, the subjective experience of acting in anger or fear has scarcely been investigated experimentally. Thus, the legal notion that these intense emotions may undermine normal voluntary control over actions and outcomes (the ‘Loss of Control’, a partial defence for murder) lacks any clear evidence base. In three laboratory experiments, we measured sense of agency using an implicit measure based on time perception (the “intentional binding” paradigm). These actions occurred in either an emotionally neutral condition, or in a fearful (experiments 1 and 2) or angry state (experiment 3). In line with our hypotheses, fear or anger reduced the subjective sense of control over an action outcome, even though the objective causal link between action and outcome remained the same. This gap between the objective facts of agency, and a reduced subjective experience of agency under emotional conditions, has important implications for society and law.
59 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that the effects of delay on the sense of agency significantly differ between different levels, and researchers willing to use delay to disturb thesense of agency should carefully clarify which process it may affect.
54 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the evolution of human beliefs is related to the phylogenetic enlargement of the brain including the parietal and medial frontal cortex in humans.
43 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that maintaining the sense of agency for human driver is important for ethical and safety reasons and a number of avenues for further research are proposed, which may help to better design an optimized driving automation considering humansense of agency.
Abstract: Driving automation has been developing rapidly during the latest decade. However, all current technologies of driving automation still require human drivers’ monitoring and intervention. This means that during driving automation, the control by human driver and by the driving automation system are blended. In this case, if the human driver loses the sense of agency over the vehicle, he/she may not be able to actively engage in driving, and may excessively rely on the driving automation system. This review focuses on the subjective feeling of agency of the human driver over the vehicle in such situations. We address the possible measures of agency in driving automation, and discuss the insights from literatures on the sense of agency in joint control, robotics, automation, and driving assistance. We suggest that maintaining the sense of agency for human driver is important for ethical and safety reasons. We further propose a number of avenues for further research, which may help to better design an optimized driving automation considering human sense of agency.
40 citations
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04 Dec 1979TL;DR: Hollon and Shaw as discussed by the authors discuss the role of emotions in Cognitive Therapy and discuss the integration of homework into Cognitive Therapy, and discuss problems related to Termination and Relapse.
Abstract: 1. An Overview 2. The Role of Emotions in Cognitive Therapy 3. The Therapeutic Relationship: Application to Cognitive Therapy 4. Structure of the Therapeutic Interview 5. The Initial Interview 6. Session by Session Treatment: A Typical Course of Therapy 7. Application of Behavioral Techniques 8. Cognitive Techniques 9. Focus on Target Symptoms 10. Specific Techniques for the Suicidal Patient 11. Interview with a Depressed Suicidal Patient 12. Depressogenic Assumptions 13. Integration of Homework into Therapy 14. Technical Problems 15. Problems Related to Termination and Relapse 16. Group Cognitive Therapy for Depressed Patients Steven D. Hollon and Brian F. Shaw 17. Cognitive Therapy and Antidepressant Medications 18. Outcome Studies of Cognitive Therapy Appendix: Materials *The Beck Inventory *Scale for Suicide Ideation *Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts *Competency Checklist for Cognitive Therapists *Possible Reasons for Not Doing Self-Help Assignments *Research Protocol for Outcome Study at Center for Cognitive Therapy *Further Materials and Technical Aids
9,970 citations
TL;DR: The empirical and theoretical development of the P300 event-related brain potential is reviewed by considering factors that contribute to its amplitude, latency, and general characteristics.
6,283 citations
"Doing good or bad: How interactions..." refers background in this paper
...Furthermore, ERPs in this time range of sensory processing are typically affected by the perceived value of a stimulus for context updating (Polich, 2007)....
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TL;DR: In this article, a review examines the role of patient predictors of outcome in cognitive therapy of depression and finds that high pretreatment severity scores are associated with poorer response to cognitive therapy, as are high chronicity, younger age at onset, an increased number of previous episodes, and marital status.
5,556 citations
4,025 citations
TL;DR: The results lend empirical support for the validity and reliability of this set of facial expressions as determined by accurate identification of expressions and high intra-participant agreement across two testing sessions, respectively.
Abstract: A set of face stimuli called the NimStim Set of Facial Expressions is described. The goal in creating this set was to provide facial expressions that untrained individuals, characteristic of research participants, would recognize. This set is large in number, multiracial, and available to the scientific community online. The results of psychometric evaluations of these stimuli are presented. The results lend empirical support for the validity and reliability of this set of facial expressions as determined by accurate identification of expressions and high intra-participant agreement across two testing sessions, respectively.
3,040 citations
"Doing good or bad: How interactions..." refers background in this paper
...The critical visual outcome stimuli consisted of 40 face images of young adults portraying either happy or angry expressions, taken from a set of face stimuli (NimStim, Tottenham et al., 2009)....
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