Metacognition of agency: proximal action and distal outcome

The cues contributing to people’s metacognitions of agency were investigated in two experiments in which people played a computer game that involved trying to “touch”, via a mouse moving a cursor, downward scrolling X’s (Experiment 1), or trying to “explode” the downward scrolling X’s (Experiment 2). Both experiments varied (a) proximal action-related information by either introducing or not introducing Turbulence into the mouse controls and (b) distal outcome-related information such that touched X’s “exploded” either 100 or 75 % of the time. Both variables affected people’s judgments of agency (JOAs), but the effect was different. First, the decrement in feelings of agency was greater with the proximal variable than with distal variable. Second, while the proximal variable always had a large direct effect on JOAs, even taking judgments of performance (JOPs) into account, JOPs completely accounted for the effect of the distal variable in Experiment 1, where the instructions were just to touch the X’s. And even in Experiment 2, in which the instructions were to explode the X’s, the direct effect of the distal variable on JOAs was small. These data indicate that these two cues exhibit different psychological profiles. The proximal action-related information is a diagnostic cue to agency indicating the match between one’s own intentions and actions. Internal monitoring of intentions is necessary and so the self is implicated. However, distal outcome can be largely monitored using information external to the agent, and so—while it is used by people to make agency judgments—it is a non-diagnostic cue.