The Role of Regularity Detection and Prediction in the Exploration of Sense of Agency

The Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the subjective feeling of controlling one’s actionsand outcomes. Both the predictive process and retrospective process are considered tocontribute this subject feeling. The predictive process focuses on the consistency betweenthe sensory prediction and the actual sensory input by the internal model, while theretrospective process emphasizes the detection of regularities between one’s action andsensory input. However, how the two types of processes contribute to the exploration ofcontrol remains unclear. In the present study, we tackled this question by examining theeffect of updating the internal model on the SoA in a control detection task. Participantsfirst adapted to a rotation of visual feedback while controlling a dot on the screen, thenconducted free movements to choose the dot they felt they could control most effectivelyamong five dots with different rotation angles. Experiment 1 used a tracking task for themotor adaptation, while Experiment 2 used a reaching task to replicate the result ofExperiment 1. The results of the two experiments showed that the motor adaptation inboth tasks did not have a significant effect on the control detection task. The updating ofthe internal model appears to have minimal influence on the control detection. Ourfindings indicated that the regularity between the action and sensory input is likely todominate in the exploration of the SoA. These findings provide important insights forunderstanding the sense of agency in the context of exploratory behaviors within the novelenvironments.