Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Intelligent agents need to understand how they can change the world, and how they cannot change it, in order to make rational decisions for their forthcoming actions, and to adapt to their current environment. Previous research on the sense of agency, based largely on subjective ratings, failed to dissociate the sensitivity of sense of agency (i.e., the extent to which individual sense of agency tracks actual instrumental control over external events) from judgment criteria (i.e., the extent to which individuals self-attribute agency independent of their actual influence over external events). Furthermore, few studies have examined whether individuals have metacognitive access to the internal processes underlying the sense of agency. We developed a novel two-alternative-forced choice (2FAC) control detection task, in which participants identified which of two visual objects was more strongly controlled by their voluntary movement. The actual level of control over the target object was manipulated by adjusting the proportion of its motion that was driven by the participant's movement, compared to the proportion driven by a pre-recorded movement by another agent, using a staircase to hold 2AFC control detection accuracy at 70%. Participants identified which of the two visual objects they controlled, and also made a binary confidence judgment regarding their control detection judgment. We calculated a bias-free measure of first-order sensitivity (d') for detection control at any given level of participant's own movement. The proportion of pre-recorded movements determined by the stairecase could then be used as an index of control detection ability. We identified two distinct processes underlying first-order detection of control: one based on instantaneous sensory predictions for the current movement, and one based on detection of a regular motor-visual relation across a series of movements. Further, we found large individual differences across 40 particpants in metacognitive sensitivity (meta-d') even though first-order sensitivity of control detection was well controlled. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), we showed that metacognition was negatively correlated with the predictive process component of detection of control. This result is inconsistent with previous hypotheses that detection of control relies on metacognitive monitoring of a predictive circuit. Instead, it suggests that predictive mechanisms that compute sense of agency may operate unconsciously.

DOI： 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105622

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

PURPOSE: An internal model deficit is considered to underlie developmental coordination disorder (DCD); thus, children with DCD have an altered sense of agency (SoA), which is associated with depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the perception of action-outcome regularity is present in early development, is involved in the generation of SoA, and has roles in adaptive motor learning and coordinated motor skills. However, perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity has not been examined in children with DCD. METHODS: We investigated perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity in 6-15-year-old children with DCD and age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) children. Both groups were assessed for coordinated motor skills with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2nd Edition, while the DCD group was assessed with the DCD Questionnaire, Social Communication Questionnaire, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder-Rating Scale, and Depression Self- Rating Scale for Children. RESULTS: Perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity was significantly reduced in children with DCD. However, there was a significant correlation between perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity and age in DCD and TD children. Perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity was significantly lower in younger children with DCD than in younger and older TD children, but there were no significant differences between older children with DCD and younger and older TD children. CONCLUSION: The current results suggest that children with DCD have significantly reduced perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity at younger ages, which may alter SoA and inhibit internal model development, thereby reducing motor skill coordination.

DOI： 10.1007/s10803-023-06144-x

PubMed

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Frontiers Media SA  

Neuromodulation techniques for modulating brain activity can affect performance in a variety of behaviors. Techniques including transcranial alternating current stimulation and random noise stimulation can modulate neural oscillations. However, the intervention effect of neuromodulation approaches on motor learning is poor, partly because the electroencephalography (EEG) power spectra associated with the motor learning process has not yet been fully elucidated. Therefore, we investigated the characteristics of EEG power spectra in the process of motor learning in 15 right-handed healthy participants (5 females; mean age = 22.8 ± 3.0 years). The motor task was a ball-rotation task in which participants rotated two balls in the palm of their left hand. Participants performed a pre-test, the motor learning tasks, and a post-test. In the motor learning tasks, twenty 60 s trials were performed in the clockwise (CW) direction. Before and after the motor learning tasks, CW and counterclockwise (CCW; control condition) tasks were performed for 60 s each as pre- and post-tests. Therefore, CW direction was set as a motor learning task, while CCW was a test-only control task. EEG was recorded during the tests and tasks, and the power spectra in the alpha, beta, and gamma oscillations were calculated and compared between pre- and post-tests. The results showed that in the CW post-test, the power of the gamma band in the left parietal areas and the right frontal area was significantly higher than in the pre-test. In the CCW, there was no significant difference in each band at each area between the pre- and post-tests. Our findings reveal the characteristics of the EEG spectra related to the motor learning process. These results may help to establish more effective neuromodulation approaches to modifying neural oscillations in motor learning, including in rehabilitation fields.

DOI： 10.3389/fnins.2023.1094658

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publisher：一般社団法人 日本小児理学療法学会  

DOI： 10.60187/jjppt.1.supplement_2_39

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the subjective feeling of controlling one's own actions and sensory feedback. The SoA occurs when the predicted feedback matches the actual sensory feedback and is responsible for maintaining behavioral comfort. However, sensorimotor deficits because of illness cause incongruence between prediction and feedback, so the patient loses comfort during actions. Discomfort with actions associated with incongruence may continue robustly (i.e., "not" adaptable) throughout life because of the aftereffects of the disease. However, it is unclear how the SoA modulates when incongruency is experienced, even for a short term. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adaptability of the SoA in healthy participants in sensorimotor tasks for a short term. Participants were divided into congruent and incongruent exposure groups. The experimental task of manipulating the ratio of the self-control of a PC cursor was used to measure the SoA before and after exposure to congruent or incongruent stimuli. The results showed no significant differences between the groups before and after exposure for a short term. The finding that the SoA was not adaptable may assist in guiding the direction of future studies on how to correct incongruence.

DOI： 10.3390/bs13020132

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Along with the comparator model, the perception of action-outcome regularity is involved in the generation of sense of agency. In addition, the perception of action-outcome regularity is related to motor performance. However, no studies have examined the developmental changes in the perception of action-outcome regularity. The current study measured perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity and manual dexterity in 200 children aged between 5 and 16 years. The results showed that perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity was significantly lower in 5-6-year-old children than in 9-16-year-old children, and that it was significantly lower in children with low manual dexterity than in children with medium to high manual dexterity. Correlation analyses revealed significant correlations of age and perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity, but no significant correlation of manual dexterity and perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity, either overall or in any age band. The present study suggests that perceptual sensitivity to action-outcome regularity is immature at 5-6 years of age and that it may be impaired in 5-16-year-old children with poor manual dexterity.

DOI： 10.1038/s41598-022-21827-8

PubMed

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

DOI： 10.1038/s44159-022-00030-6

researchmap

Other Link： https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-022-00030-6

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Self-related stimuli are important cues for people to recognize themselves in the external world and hold a special status in our perceptual system. Self-voice plays an important role in daily social communication and is also a frequent input for self-identification. Although many studies have been conducted on the acoustic features of self-voice, no research has ever examined the spatial aspect, although the spatial perception of voice is important for humans. This study proposes a novel perspective for studying self-voice. We investigated people's distance perception of their own voice when the voice was heard from an external position. Participants heard their own voice from one of four speakers located either 90 or 180 cm from their sitting position, either immediately after uttering a short vowel (i.e., active session) or hearing the replay of their own pronunciation (i.e., replay session). They were then asked to indicate which speaker they heard the voice from. Their voices were either pitch-shifted by ± 4 semitones (i.e., other-voice condition) or unaltered (i.e., self-voice condition). The results of spatial judgment showed that self-voice from the closer speakers was misattributed to that from the speakers further away at a significantly higher proportion than other-voice. This phenomenon was also observed when the participants remained silent and heard prerecorded voices. Additional structural equation modeling using participants' schizotypal scores showed that the effect of self-voice on distance perception was significantly associated with the score of delusional thoughts (Peters Delusion Inventory) and distorted body image (Perceptual Aberration Scale) in the active speaking session but not in the replay session. The findings of this study provide important insights for understanding how people process self-related stimuli when there is a small distortion and how this may be linked to the risk of psychosis.

DOI： 10.1038/s41598-021-04437-8

PubMed

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

<title>Abstract</title>The sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one’s own actions, and through them, the external events. This study examined the effect of modified visual feedback on the sense of agency over one’s body movements using virtual reality in healthy individuals whose motor control was disturbed. Participants moved a virtual object using their right hand to trace a trajectory (Experiment 1) or a leading target (Experiment 2). Their motor control was disturbed by a delay in visual feedback (Experiment 1) or a 1-kg weight attached to their wrist (Experiment 2). In the offset conditions, the virtual object was presented at the median point between the desired position and the participants’ actual hand position. In both experiments, participants reported improved sense of agency in the offset condition compared to the aligned condition where the visual feedback reflected their actual body movements, despite their motion being less precise in the offset condition. The results show that sense of agency can be enhanced by modifying feedback to motor tasks according to the goal of the task, even when visual feedback is discrepant from the actual body movements. The present study sheds light on the possibility of artificially enhancing body agency to improve voluntary motor control.

DOI： 10.1038/s41598-021-82154-y

researchmap

Other Link： http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82154-y

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Adaptive motor learning refers to the ability to adjust to novel disturbances in the environment as a way of minimizing sensorimotor errors. It is known that such processes show large individual differences and are linked to multiple perceptual and cognitive processes. On the other hand, the sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of control during voluntary motor control. Is the sense of agency just a by-product of the control outcome, or is it actually important for motor control and learning? To answer this question, this study takes an approach based on individual differences to investigate the relationship between the sense of agency and learnability in sensorimotor adaptation. Specifically, we use an adaptive motor learning task to measure individual differences in the efficiency of motor learning. Regarding the sense of agency, we measure the perceptual sensitivity of detecting an increase or a decrease in control when the actual level of control gradually increases or decreases, respectively. The results of structure equation modelling reveal a significant influence of perceptual sensitivity to increased control on motor learning efficiency. On the other hand, the link between perceptual sensitivity to decreased control and motor learning is nonsignificant. The results show that the sense of agency in detecting increased control is associated with the actual ability of sensorimotor adaptation: people who are more sensitive in detecting their control in the environment can also more quickly adjust their behaviors to novel disturbances to acquire better control, compared to people who have a less sensitive sense of agency. Finally, the results also reveal that the processes of increasing control and decreasing control may be partially independent.

DOI： 10.1038/s41598-021-99969-4

PubMed

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

DOI： 10.14569/IJACSA.2021.0120402

Scopus

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Driving assistance technology has gained traction in recent years and is becoming more widely used in vehicles. However, drivers usually experience a reduced sense of agency when driving assistance is active even though automated assistance improves driving performance by reducing human error and ensuring quick reactions. The present study examined whether driving assistance can maintain human sense of agency during early deceleration in the face of collision risk, compared with manual deceleration. In the experimental task, participants decelerate their vehicle in a driving simulator to avoid collision with a vehicle that suddenly cut in front of them and decelerated. In the assisted condition, the system performed deceleration 100 ms after the cut-in. Participants were instructed to decelerate their vehicle and follow the vehicle that cut-in. This design ensured that the deceleration assistance applied a similar control to the vehicle as the drivers intended to, only faster and smoother. Participants rated their sense of agency and their driving performance. The results showed that drivers maintained their sense of agency and improved driving performance under driving assistance. The findings provided insights into designing driving assistance that can maintain drivers' sense of agency while improving future driving performance. It is important to establish a mode of joint-control in which the system shares the intention of human drivers and provides improved execution of control.

DOI： 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643516

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The self is a distinct entity from the rest of the world, and actions and sensory feedback are our channels of interaction with the external world. This study examined how the sense of control influences people's perception of sensorimotor input under the framework of categorical perception. Twenty human participants (18 males, two females) took part in both experiments. Experiment 1 showed that the sensitivity (d') of detecting a 20% change in control from no change was higher when the changes occurred at the control-category boundary than within each category. Experiment 2 showed that the control categories greatly affected early attention allocation, even when the judgment of control was unnecessary to the task. Taken together, these results showed that our perceptual and cognitive systems are highly sensitive to small changes in control that build up to a determinant change in the control category within a relatively narrow boundary zone between categories, compared to a continuous, gradual physical change in control.Significance Statement Categorical perception is an important cognitive function that connects human low-level perceptual systems with high-level conceptual systems. Categorical perception has been intensively studied with sensory features (e.g., color and faces), but little is known about sensorimotor information, despite its importance for interacting with the external world. This is the first study to show that individuals perceive their control in meaningful categories rather than via linear encoding. The categorical perception of control diminishes sensitivity to differences within control categories, while increasing sensitivity to sensorimotor inputs at the control-category boundaries. The findings broaden our understanding on how human action influences the perception of action consequences, and how humans organize the external world according to the consequences of their actions.

DOI： 10.1523/ENEURO.0258-20.2020

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English  

In everyday life, people control objects in the world around them to varying degrees. The processes people actively use to establish their control, while interacting with an environment containing large ambiguity, remain unknown. This study examines how people explore their control over the environment and how they detect small differences in control among objects. In the experimental task, participants moved three dots on a screen and identified one dot over which the level of control is different from that of the other two. The results support a two-step behavior mechanism underlying the sensing of control difference: People first explore their overall control in the environment, and then the results of the initial exploration are used to selectively tune the direction (i.e., either more or less) of the detected control difference, ensuring efficient and rapid detection of the type of control difference that is potentially important for further action selections.

DOI： 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101112

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier B.V.  

The sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of controlling one's own actions, and through them, events in the outside world. According to computational motor control models, the prediction errors from comparison between the predicted sensory feedback and actual sensory feedback determine whether people feel agency over the corresponding outcome event, or not. This mechanism requires a model of the relation between action and outcome. However, in a novel environment, where this model has not yet been learned, the sense of agency must emerge during exploratory behaviours. In the present study, we designed a novel control detection task, in which participants explored the extent to which they could control the movement of three dots with a computer mouse, and then identified the dot that they felt they could control. Pre-recorded motions were applied for two dots, and the participants’ real-time motion only influenced one dot's motion (i.e. the target dot). We disturbed participants’ control over the motion of the target dot in one of two ways. In one case, we applied a fixed angular bias transformation between participant's movements and dot movements. In another condition, we mixed the participant's current movement with replay of another movement, and used the resulting hybrid signal to drive visual dot position. The former intervention changes the match between motor action and visual outcome, but maintains a regular relation between the two. In contrast, the latter alters both matching and motor-visual correlation. Crucially, we carefully selected the strength of these two perturbations so that they caused the same magnitude of impairment of motor performance in a simple reaching task, suggesting that both interventions produced comparable prediction errors. However, we found the visuomotor transformation had much less effect on the ability to detect which dot was under one's own control than did the nonlinear disturbance. This suggests a specific role of a correlation-like mechanism that detects ongoing visual-motor regularity in the human sense of agency. These regularity-detection mechanisms would remain intact under the linear, but not the nonlinear transformation. Human sense of agency may depend on monitoring ongoing motor-visual regularities, as well as on detecting prediction errors.

DOI： 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104074

Scopus

PubMed

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier {BV}  

DOI： 10.1016/j.concog.2019.05.007

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

DOI： 10.1109/embc.2019.8856796

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Fuji Technology Press Ltd.  

<p>Improving the walking functions of hemiplegia patients after a stroke or brain injury is an important rehabilitation challenge. Recently, walking assist robots have been introduced in advanced rehabilitation facilities as a way to improve the efficiency of patient rehabilitation and restore their walking functions. Expert therapists can apply this device on different patients; however, such application mainly depends on the therapist's tacit knowledge. Thus, it is often harder for novice therapists to apply such devices on different types of patients. Consequently, effective use of a walking assist robot has become a new patient rehabilitation skill. Taking rehabilitation as a service provided by medical doctors or therapists to their patients, this study aims to improve the quality of the rehabilitation service. In particular, the objective of this study is to abstract the rehabilitation skill of expert therapists in using a walking assist robot by applying a service science methodology known as skill education. Skill abstraction was performed by interviewing an expert therapist. From this interview, it was found that the expert therapist classified hemiplegia patients into four different classes. Using videos of patients walking, further analysis revealed the expert's tacit knowledge, which was indicated by differences observed among these four groups in particular phases of the patients' walking patterns. This study shows that by successfully obtaining explicit knowledge of part of a rehabilitation skill by using a walking assist robot (which until now was a tacit knowledge of experts), and then organizing the acquired explicit knowledge, even non-experts can easily reproduce the skill of experts in new patient rehabilitation.</p>

DOI： 10.20965/ijat.2019.p0271

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：English   Publisher：Fuji Technology Press Ltd.  

<p>Several disease presentations are linked to a mismatch between the real body and the body's internal representation of itself. In order to develop effective rehabilitation therapies, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms underlying changes in body representation. In this study, we focused on changes in body representation of the upper limb as a large part of the body and investigated the conditions under which such changes occur. Participants were presented four conditions which differentially affected their sense of ownership and agency, including a movement condition related to their sense of agency, and a visual hand information condition related to the sense of ownership. In the experiment, participants were asked to move their upper limb forward and backward on a manipulandum. Results of the study showed that visual hand position affected changes in body representation relevant to both conscious and unconscious body parts. In addition, changes in the representation of the unconscious body part occurred with, and were dependent on, active movement.</p>

DOI： 10.20965/jaciii.2019.p0196

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Science and Information Organization  

DOI： 10.14569/ijacsa.2019.0101202

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

It is important to evaluate and maintain driver’s sense of agency (SoA), because poor SoA of assisted driver may result in slow and inaccurate response in case decisions are required from the driver. This study investigated the relationship between SoA and alpha-band power of EEG in a simulated driving environment.

DOI： 10.1007/978-3-030-01845-0_208

Scopus

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

DOI： 10.1038/s41598-018-30410-z

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Academic Press Inc.  

The sense of agency emerges when our voluntary actions produce anticipated or predictable outcomes in the external world. It remains unclear how the sense of control also influences our perception of the external world. The present study examined perceptual processing of self-generated motion versus non-self-generated motion using steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Participants continuously moved their finger on a touchpad to trigger the movements of two shapes (Experiment 1) or two groups of dots (Experiment 2) on a monitor. Degree of control was manipulated by varying the spatial relation between finger movement and stimulus trajectory across conditions. However, the velocity, onset time, and offset time of visual stimuli always corresponded to participants’ finger movement. Stimuli flickered at a frequency of either 7.5 Hz or 10 Hz, thus SSVEPs of these frequencies and their harmonics provided a frequency-tagged measurement of perceptual processing. Participants triggered the motion of all stimuli simultaneously, but had greater levels of control over some stimuli than over others. Their task was to detect a brief colour change on the border(s) of one shape (Experiment 1) or of one group of dots (Experiment 2). Although control over shapes/dots was irrelevant to the visual detection task, we found stronger SSVEPs for stimuli that were under a high level of control, compared with the stimuli that were under a low level of control. Our results suggest that the spatial regularity between self-generated movements and visual input boosted the neural responses underlying perceptual processing. Our results support the preactivation account of sensory attenuation, suggesting that perceptual processing of self-generated events is enhanced rather than inhibited.

DOI： 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.04.019

Scopus

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Fuji Technology Press Ltd.  

<p>Back pain has been a serious problem for novice nurses who care for bedridden patients. To avoid back pain, placing a slippery sliding sheet beneath a patient has been suggested so that nurses can pull it when repositioning the patient rather than lifting the patient. However, inappropriate use of the sheet may not reduce lumbar pain. Therefore, it is important to identify skills required for novice nurses to perform bed care movements using a sliding sheet. This study firstly performed interview to obtain useful knowledge from expert nurses who are skilled in using a sliding sheet. Next, a simulation study was then conducted to determine specific bed care movements that would minimize lumbar joint moment associated with lumbar pain. The simulated and expert movements were compared to validate whether expert movements decreases lumbar joint moment. Finally, a novice participant was taught these expert movements, and the educational effect of using these skills was validated. Our results showed that the experts used characteristic movements, keeping the upper arm and trunk stabilized and utilizing a shift in body weight, when performing bed care movements with the sliding sheet. Additionally, the expert movements and simulated movements were shown to be similar. This result confirmed that expert movements could contribute to reducing lumbar joint moments. Moreover, a novice participant could decrease lumbar moment using skills derived from effective education.</p>

DOI： 10.20965/ijat.2018.p0533

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：{SAGE} Publications  

DOI： 10.1177/2158244018769131

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：{MIT} Press - Journals  

<jats:p> The feeling of control is a fundamental aspect of human experience and accompanies our voluntary actions all the time. However, how the sense of control interacts with wider perception, cognition, and behavior remains poorly understood. This study focused on how controlling an external object influences the allocation of attention. Experiment 1 examined attention to an object that is under a different level of control from the others. Participants searched for a target among multiple distractors on screen. All the distractors were partially under the participant's control (50% control level), and the search target was either under more or less control than the distractors. The results showed that, against this background of partial control, visual attention was attracted to an object only if it was more controlled than other available objects and not if it was less controlled. Experiment 2 examined attention allocation in contexts of either perfect control or no control over most of the objects. Specifically, the distractors were under either perfect (100%) control or no (0%) control, and the search target had one of six levels of control varying from 0% to 100%. When differences in control between the distractors and the target were small, visual attention was now more strongly drawn to search targets that were less controlled than distractors, rather than more controlled, suggesting attention to objects over which one might be losing control. Experiment 3 studied the events of losing or gaining control as opposed to the states of having or not having control. ERP measures showed that P300 amplitude proportionally encoded the magnitude of both increases and decreases in degree of control. However, losing control had more marked effects on P170 and P300 than gaining an equivalent degree of control, indicating high priority for efficiently detecting failures of control. Overall, our results suggest that controlled objects preferentially attract attention in uncontrolled environments. However, once control has been registered, the brain becomes highly sensitive to subsequent loss of control. Our findings point toward careful perceptual monitoring of degree of one's own agentic control over external objects. We suggest that control has intrinsic cognitive value because perceptual systems are organized to detect it and, once it has been acquired, to maintain it. </jats:p>

DOI： 10.1162/jocn_a_01226

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier {BV}  

File： The influence of performance on action-effect integration in sense of agency.pdf

DOI： 10.1016/j.concog.2017.06.008

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：FRONTIERS MEDIA SA  

"Sense of control" refers to the subjective feeling of control over external events. Numerous neuropsychological studies have investigated the neural basis of the sense of control during action performance; however, most previous studies have focused on responses to a single discrete action outcome rather than real-time processing of action-outcome sequences. In the present study, we aimed to identify whether certain patterns of brain activation are associated with the perceived control during continuous movement. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) signals while participants continuously moved a right-handed mouse in an attempt to control multiple visual stimuli. When participants perceived a sense of control over the stimuli, we observed a positive potential approximately 550 ms after the onset of movement, while no similar potential was observed when participants reported a lack of control. The appearance of this potential was consistent with the time window of awareness of control in a behavioral test using the same task, and likely reflected the explicit allocation of attention to control. Moreover, we found that the alpha-mu rhythm, which is linked to sensorimotor processing, was significantly suppressed after participants came to a conclusion regarding the level of control, regardless of whether control or lack of control was perceived. In summary, our results suggest that the late positive potential after the onset of the movement and the suppression of alpha-mu rhythm can be used as markers of the perception of control during continuous action performance and feedback monitoring.

File： Measurement of the perception of control during continuous movement using electroencephalography.pdf

DOI： 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00392

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Scientific Research Publishing, Inc.  

DOI： 10.4236/psych.2017.87064

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers  

DOI： 10.11499/sicejl.56.175

CiNii Article

researchmap

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：FRONTIERS MEDIA SA  

Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the feeling of controlling ones own actions, and the experience of controlling external events with ones actions. The present study examined the effect of strength of intentional effort on SoA. We manipulated the strength of intentional effort using three types of buttons that differed in the amount of force required to depress them. We used a self-attribution task as an explicit measure of SoA. The results indicate that strength of intentional effort enhanced self-attribution when action-effect congruency was unreliable. We concluded that intentional effort importantly affects the integration of multiple cues affecting explicit judgments of agency when the causal relationship action and effect was unreliable.

DOI： 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01165

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：FRONTIERS MEDIA SA  

Body representation refers to perception, memory, and cognition related to the body and is updated continuously by sensory input. The present study examined the influence of goals on body representation updating with two experiments of the rubber hand paradigm. In the experiments, participants moved their hidden left hands forward and backward either in response to instruction to touch a virtual object or without any specific goal, while a virtual left hand was presented 250 mm above the real hand and moved in synchrony with the real hand. Participants then provided information concerning the perceived heights of their real left hands and rated their sense of agency and ownership of the virtual hand. Results of Experiment 1 showed that when participants moved their hands with the goal of touching a virtual object and received feedback indicating goal attainment, the perceived positions of their real hands shifted more toward that of the virtual hand relative to that in the condition without a goal, indicating that their body representations underwent greater modification. Furthermore, results of Experiment 2 showed that the effect of goal directed movement occurred in the active condition, in which participants moved their own hands, but did not occur in the passive condition, in which participants' hands were moved by the experimenter. Therefore, we concluded that the sense of agency probably contributed to the updating of body representation involving goal directed movement.

DOI： 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00329

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier {BV}  

DOI： 10.1016/j.neures.2015.10.010

PubMed

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

In many sports, essential skills exist in terms of muscle activation in order to improve performance. However, it is difficult to identify the important muscle activation, and moreover novices cannot observe and imitate it since muscle activation is hardly visible. This study especially focuses on human rowing motion to extract an important skill in terms of muscle activation and we develop skill education system for novices to learn the skill. Firstly, strength and activation timing of lower leg muscle are evaluated to detect the expert skill based on their peak value and cross correlation during movement. Next, new skill education system is suggested by simultaneous presentation of real human movement and muscle activations of the targeted muscle. In the proposed system, muscle color is continuously changed based on its activation level for novices to perceive their muscle activation visually. Both experts and novices participated at our skill extraction experiment to compare their muscle activation. Results showed that experts had larger peak activation level and different profile in rectus femoris muscle. Therefore, our skill education system focused on rectus femoris muscle to present its activation level and movement simultaneously. In order to evaluate efficacy of the developed system, four different education instructions were conducted to novices; linguistic education, simultaneous presentation of motion and muscle activation of the expert, off-line presentation of novices motion and muscle activation, and real time presentation of novices motion and muscle activation. Performance of novices was evaluated after each instruction based on peak activation level, cross correlation, and exerted power on the rowing ergometer. These performance change after each education implied providing integrated view of novices motion and muscle activation in real-time could improve performance of rowing motion.

DOI： 10.1299/transjsme.15-00424

CiNii Article

researchmap

Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：IEEE  

In recent Japanese society, we are facing a severe increase in the number of patients who suffer from motor paralysis and other dysfunctions. Establishing an effective rehabilitation system for them is important, and the key to attain this target is to clarify the mechanisms of one's body perception in the brain. The feeling of controlling our action and external event is an important aspect of body perception, and thus is a topic we have to investigate. This feeling is called the Sense of Agency (SoA), and in order to clarify the mechanism of the SoA, it is necessary to clarify neuro-physiological indices that reflect the arising of this feeling. Recent investigated the relationship between SoA and neural activity with event-related potential (ERP) but these studies focused only on the feedback processing after the action-feedback (e.g. N100, P300), while no study investigated the neural basis of the action-preceding part during SoA paradigm. In this research we focused on feedback-anticipation as an action-preceding factor of SoA, and the purpose of this research is to find a neuro-physiological indices which reflect this factor. We hypothesized that readiness potential (RP) would reflect this factor. In the Libet's clock task based experiment, two conditions which differed in the state of the anticipations for the feedback were prepared. In order to manipulate the anticipation, the probability of the tone occurrence was manipulated in each condition. Earlier and larger RP was observed when the feedback-anticipation was inconsistent in relative with the consistent condition, and additional experiment by increasing the sample size is needed. Our study is the first one that reveals the neural basis of the action-preceding factor of SoA, and we believe that our study will contribute to unravel the neural basis of the SoA.

DOI： 10.1109/MHS.2016.7824228

Scopus

J-GLOBAL

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：FRONTIERS MEDIA SA  

Sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of controlling events through one's behavior or will. Sense of agency results from matching predictions of one's own actions with actual feedback regarding the action. Furthermore, when an action involves a cued goal, performance-based inference contributes to sense of agency. That is, if people achieve their goal, they would believe themselves to be in control. Previous studies have shown that both action-effect comparison and performance-based inference contribute to sense of agency; however, the dominance of one process over the other may shift based on task conditions such as the presence or absence of specific goals. In this study, we examined the influence of divided attention on these two processes underlying sense of agency in two conditions. In the experimental task, participants continuously controlled a moving dot for 10 s while maintaining a string of three or seven digits in working memory. We found that when there was no cued goal (no-cued-goal condition), sense of agency was impaired by high cognitive load. Contrastingly, when participants controlled the dot based on a cued goal (cued-goal-directed condition), their sense of agency was lower than in the no-cued-goal condition and was not affected by cognitive load. The results suggest that the action-effect comparison process underlying sense of agency requires attention. On the other hand, the weaker influence of divided attention in the cued-goal-directed condition could be attributed to the dominance of performance-based inference, which is probably automatic.

DOI： 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00035

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE  

We examined the influence of goals on sense of control relative to that experienced when taking action randomly. In the experimental task, participants controlled the direction of a moving dot by pressing the left and right keys at will without a specific goal (the control condition), directed the moving dot to a destination as often as possible (the strong goal condition), or kept the moving dot in the central area of the screen (the weak goal condition) for as long as possible. The results showed that the strong goal impaired the sense of control, but the weak goal did not exert an influence. We concluded that the goal-based expectation influenced sense of control, but the goal-directed action selection did not. Furthermore, we proposed a modified comparator model of the sense of control, offering a promising approach to integration of the predictive and postdictive processes involved in the sense of control. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

File： The influence of goals on sense of control.pdf

DOI： 10.1016/j.concog.2015.08.012

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE  

The sense of agency refers to the feeling of being able to initiate and control events through one's actions. The "intentional binding" effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002), refers to a subjective compression of the temporal interval between actions and their effects. The present study examined the influence of action-outcome delays and arousal on both the subjective judgment of agency and the intentional binding effect. In the experiment, participants pressed a key to trigger a central square to jump after various delays. A red central square was used in the high-arousal condition. Results showed that a longer interval between actions and their effects was associated with a lower sense of agency but a stronger intentional binding effect. Furthermore, although arousal enhanced the intentional binding effect, it did not influence the judgment of agency. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

File： The influence of action-outcome delay and arousal on sense of agency and the intentional binding effect.pdf

DOI： 10.1016/j.concog.2015.06.004

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE  

The sense of agency refers to the feeling that one is controlling events through one's own behavior. This study examined how task performance and the delay of events influence one's sense of agency during continuous action accompanied by a goal. The participants were instructed to direct a moving dot into a square as quickly as possible by pressing the left and right keys on a keyboard to control the direction in which the dot traveled. The interval between the key press and response of the dot (i.e., direction change) was manipulated to vary task difficulty. Moreover, in the assisted condition, the computer ignored participants' erroneous commands, resulting in improved task performance but a weaker association between the participants' commands and actual movements of the dot relative to the condition in which all of the participants' commands were executed (i.e., self-control condition). The results showed that participants' sense of agency increased with better performance in the assisted condition relative to the self-control condition, even though a large proportion of their commands were not executed. We concluded that, when the action-feedback association was uncertain, cognitive inference was more dominant relative to the process of comparing predicted and perceived information in the judgment of agency.

File： journal.pone.0125226.pdf

DOI： 10.1371/journal.pone.0125226

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV  

This study examined the effects of instruction on verbal and spatial strategies on the learning about large-scale spaces by people with different levels of sense of direction. 103 participants learned two routes from a video, first without instruction and second with verbalization, spatial operation, or no instruction. For landmark learning, people with a good sense of direction benefited from both verbalization and spatial operation, and people with a poor sense of direction benefited from verbalization only. For survey learning, verbalization had a disruptive effect, and people with a good sense of direction did worse with instruction, either verbal or spatial. By contrast, survey learning by people with a poor sense of direction was not affected by verbalization or spatial operation, indicating their difficulty with survey learning and insensitivity to strategy instruction. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.lindif.2014.06.005

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PION LTD  

Many people complain that they do not photograph well. In the present study, we hypothesised that the self-face is memorized more beautifully than reality, which may result in reports of being not photogenic. We took photographs of students who were in the same university course and were familiar with one another. We then magnified or shrunk the size of their eyes (Experiment 1; N = 10) and their mouths (Experiment 2; N = 10). We asked the students to select the picture that seemed most like their classmates' real faces or their own real face. The results showed that there were significant differences between memories of their own and others' faces. Participants selected their classmates' real faces to a greater degree than the modified faces. However, participants tended to select pictures of themselves with magnified eyes and shrunken mouths more often than for their classmates. In Experiment 3 (N = 22), more male participants were included and the influence of gender and mirror-reversed images were examined. We found that there were no significant differences across gender, and the mirror reversal did not change the participants' selections. The bias of self-face recognition may reflect different memory processes for the self and others.

File： (i-Perception)Why am I not photogenic Differences in face memory for the self and others.pdf

DOI： 10.1068/i0634

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Scientific Research Publishing, Inc.  

DOI： 10.4236/psych.2013.49100

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Wiley-Blackwell Publishing  

This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in the acquisition of egocentric and allocentric survey knowledge by people with a good and poor sense of direction (SOD). We employed a dual-task method and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual, and spatial interference tasks and without any interference. Results showed that people with a good SOD encoded and integrated knowledge about landmarks and routes into egocentric survey knowledge in verbal and spatial working memory, which is then transformed into allocentric survey knowledge with the support of all three components, distances being processed in verbal and spatial working memory and directions in visual and spatial working memory. In contrast, people with a poor SOD relied on verbal working memory and lacked spatial processing, thus failing to acquire accurate survey knowledge. Based on the results, a possible model for explaining individual differences in spatial knowledge acquisition is proposed. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

DOI： 10.1111/cogs.12005

Scopus

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：WILEY-BLACKWELL  

This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in spatial knowledge acquisition for good and poor sense-of-direction (SOD) people. We employed a dual-task method, and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual and spatial interference tasks and without any interference. Results showed that participants with a good SOD encoded landmarks and routes verbally and spatially, and integrated knowledge about them into survey knowledge with the support of all three components of working memory. In contrast, participants with a poor SOD encoded landmarks only verbally, and tended to rely on the visual component of working memory in the processing of route knowledge. Based on the results, a possible model for explaining the differences in spatial knowledge acquisition and SOD was proposed. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DOI： 10.1002/acp.1737

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japan Society for Precision Engineering  

Body representation refers to perception and memory in brain about status of one&amp;prime;s body, such as position, posture, and appearance. In the present study, we examined the influence of an instructed goal on modification of body representation. Specifically, we asked participants to move their left hands back and forward, while their left hand was hidden from vision, and a virtual left hand was presented 33 cm vertically above the real hand. The virtual hand moved synchronously with the real hand. After moving their hands for serval minutes, participants would feel that the virtual hand seems like their own, and their perceived position of the real left hand would shift to the position of the virtual hand. According to the results, we found that when the participants moved their hands upon an instructed goal, the perceived position of their real hand shifted more to the virtual hand than that when they moved their hands without a goal and received feedback of goal attainment. The results showed that of body representation was modified more by the synchronous visual motion when there was an instructed goal for the motion.

DOI： 10.11522/pscjspe.2016S.0_573

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)   Publisher：The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers  

Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the experience of controlling external events. SoA is considered to have predictive and postdictive aspect. Recent studies have investigated the relationship between SoA and event-related potentials, but these studies focused only on the postdictive aspect, while the brain activities related to the predictive aspect of SoA remain unclear. In the present study, we focused on readiness potential (RP) and examined the influence of prediction of SoA on RP. In the experiment, participants pressed a key to trigger a tone, and the event-related potentials before and after the key-press was recorded. In the normal predictive condition, all the tones were presented after key-press, thus participants could predict that their key-press would probably cause a tone. In contrast, in the low predictive condition, one third of the tones were presented before the key-presses, thus the causability of key-presses on tones were doubtful. The results indicated earlier RP in the normal predictive condition relative to the low predictive condition, although the difference did not reach significant level due to the small sample size. We will increase participants to confirm the difference in RP between the two predictive conditions in future work. We believe that our work provides important knowledge for the understanding of the neural basis of SoA.

DOI： 10.1299/jsmeicam.2015.6.353

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)  

researchmap

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (international conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

DOI： 10.14947/psychono.KJ00008045559

J-GLOBAL

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers  

This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in spatial knowledge acquisition for good and poor sense-of-direction people. We employed a dual-task method, and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual, and spatial interference tasks and without any interference. Results showed that participants with a good sense of direction encoded landmarks and routes verbally and spatially, and integrated knowledge about them into survey knowledge with the support of all three components of working memory. In contrast, participants with a poor sense of direction encoded landmarks only verbally, and tended to rely on the visual component of working memory in the processing of route knowledge. Based on the results, a possible model for explaining the differences in spatial knowledge acquisition and sense of direction was proposed.

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers  

This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in spatial knowledge acquisition for good and poor sense-of-direction people. We employed a dual-task method, and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual, and spatial interference tasks and without any interference. Results showed that participants with a good sense of direction encoded landmarks and routes verbally and spatially, and integrated knowledge about them into survey knowledge with the support of all three components of working memory. In contrast, participants with a poor sense of direction encoded landmarks only verbally, and tended to rely on the visual component of working memory in the processing of route knowledge. Based on the results, a possible model for explaining the differences in spatial knowledge acquisition and sense of direction was proposed.

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

DOI： 10.14947/psychono.KJ00006393859

CiNii Article

J-GLOBAL

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

CiNii Article

researchmap

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper, summary (national, other academic conference)  

researchmap

Language：Japanese  

J-GLOBAL

researchmap