Punishing temporal judgement boosts sense of agency and modulates its underlying neural correlates

Feeling in control of one’s actions is fundamental to the formation of action-outcome relationships. Reinforcement and its valence also change the action-outcome relationship, either through behavior promotion or diminishment. In this study we evaluated how reward and punishment reinforcement modulate sense of agency, as measured by intentional binding. Moreover, using electroencephalography (EEG) we evaluated how reward and punishment reinforcement changes outcome event related potentials associated with the accuracy of participants’ judgement of the time interval between a key press and audio tone. We found that punishment reinforcement increased intentional binding between the action and outcome more than reward and control feedback. This was also reflected in the outcome event related potentials, where punishment elicited greater P300s and Late Positive Potentials compared to reward and control. We also found increased N100s and diminished P300s and Late Positive Potentials when the participants did not actively participate in evoking the tone. Taken together, our findings showcase that punishment reinforcement boosts sense of agency and modulates associated neural activity more than reward and no reinforcement, as a function of increasing attention and arousal. These findings illuminate the greater effect punishment reinforcement has on behavior and brain activity by its modification of sense of agency, which is important for the development of treatments in psychiatric and neurological diseases.