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.

中文翻译：

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预测误差和规律性检测是计算代理感的两种可分离机制的基础。

代理感是指控制自己的行为并通过这些行为控制外界事件的主观感觉。根据计算的运动控制模型，通过比较预测的感觉反馈和实际感觉反馈之间的预测误差，可以确定人们是否在相应的结果事件上感觉到代理。这种机制需要行动与结果之间的关系模型。但是，在尚未学习此模型的新颖环境中，必须在探索性行为中出现代理意识。在本研究中，我们设计了一种新颖的控制检测任务，参与者在其中探索了他们可以使用计算机鼠标控制三个点的移动的程度，然后确定了他们认为可以控制的点。预先录制的运动应用于两个点，并且参与者的实时运动仅影响一个点的运动（即目标点）。我们以两种方式之一干扰了参与者对目标点运动的控制。在一种情况下，我们在参与者的运动和点的运动之间应用了固定的角度偏差转换。在另一种情况下，我们将参与者的当前动作与另一动作的重放混合在一起，并使用所得的混合信号来驱动可视点位置。前一种干预改变了运动动作和视觉结果之间的匹配，但保持了两者之间的规则关系。相反，后者改变匹配和运动视觉相关性。至关重要的是 我们仔细选择了这两种扰动的强度，以使它们在简单的伸手可及的任务中造成相同程度的运动表现受损，表明这两种干预措施均产生了可比的预测误差。然而，我们发现视觉运动变换对检测哪个点在自己的控制下的能力的影响要比非线性扰动小得多。这暗示了一种类似相关机制的特殊作用，该机制可以检测人的代理感中正在进行的视觉运动规律。在线性而不是非线性变换下，这些规则性检测机制将保持完整。人类对代理的感觉可能取决于监视正在进行的运动视觉规律以及检测预测错误。提示这两种干预措施均产生了可比的预测误差。然而，我们发现视觉运动变换对检测哪个点在自己的控制下的能力的影响要比非线性扰动小得多。这暗示了一种类似相关机制的特殊作用，该机制可以检测人的代理感中正在进行的视觉运动规律。在线性而不是非线性变换下，这些规则性检测机制将保持完整。人类对代理的感觉可能取决于监视正在进行的运动视觉规律以及检测预测错误。提示这两种干预措施均产生了可比的预测误差。然而，我们发现视觉运动变换对检测哪个点在自己的控制下的能力的影响要比非线性扰动小得多。这暗示了一种类似相关机制的特殊作用，该机制可以检测人的代理感中正在进行的视觉运动规律。在线性而不是非线性变换下，这些规则性检测机制将保持完整。人类对代理的感觉可能取决于监视正在进行的运动视觉规律以及检测预测错误。这暗示了一种类似相关机制的特殊作用，该机制可以检测人的代理感中正在进行的视觉运动规律。在线性而不是非线性变换下，这些规则性检测机制将保持完整。人类对代理的感觉可能取决于监视正在进行的运动视觉规律以及检测预测错误。这暗示了一种类似相关机制的特殊作用，该机制可以检测人的代理感中正在进行的视觉运动规律。在线性而不是非线性变换下，这些规则性检测机制将保持完整。人类对代理的感觉可能取决于监视正在进行的运动视觉规律以及检测预测错误。