Affiliations: Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Université
Claude Bernard Lyon1, RSCN, 69675 Lyon, France | Centre Hospitalier Le Vinatier, Lyon, France
Note: [] Corresponding author: Chlöé Farrer, Centre de
Neuroscience Cognitive, UMR 5229 CNRS, 67 Bd Pinel, 69675 Bron Cedex, France.
Tel.: +33 0 4 37 91 12 26; Fax: +33 0 4 37 91 12 10; E-mail: farrer@isc.cnrs.fr
Abstract: It has been hypothesized that an internal model is involved in
controlling and recognizing one's own actions (action attribution). This
results from a comparison process between the predicted sensory feedback of the
action and its real sensory consequences. The aim of the present study is to
distinguish the respective importance of two action parameters (time and
direction) on such an attribution judgment. We used a device that allows
introduction of discordance between the movements actually performed and the
sensory feedback displayed on a computer screen. Participants were asked to
judge whether they were viewing 1) their own movements, 2) their own movements
modified (spatially or temporally displaced), or 3) those of another agent
(i.e, the experimenter). In fact, in all conditions they were only shown their
own movements either unaltered or modified by varying amounts in space or time. Movements were only attributed to another agent when there was a high spatial
discordance between participants' hand movements and sensory feedback. This
study is the first to show that the direction of movements is a cardinal
feature in action attribution, whereas temporal properties of movements play a
less important role.
