Effects of perturbation magnitude and duration on sense of agency and electrodermal activity during continuous action

Abstract

Abstract

Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the subjective feeling of controlling one’s own actions and their outcomes. Previous studies have shown that sensorimotor discrepancies, such as spatial perturbations, reduce SoA, but it remains unclear whether such control disruptions also elicit online autonomic arousal during continuous action. In the present study, across two experiments, participants performed a continuous target-reaching task in which visual feedback of cursor movement was spatially perturbed. We recorded electrodermal activity during the task and used skin conductance level (SCL) as the physiological measure. We assessed subjective SoA and perceived stress after each trial. In Experiment 1, we manipulated perturbation magnitude and found that stronger perturbation reduced subjective SoA, increased perceived stress, and elicited a greater increase in SCL. In Experiment 2, we manipulated perturbation duration to examine whether the SCL increase in Experiment 1 depended on the continued presence of a strong perturbation or primarily on the early phase of disrupted control. Participants reported lower subjective SoA and higher perceived stress in the Long-term perturbation condition than in the Short-term perturbation condition, whereas mean SCL change did not reliably differ between conditions. Together, these findings suggest that spatial perturbations during continuous action are accompanied by changes in sympathetic electrodermal activity. The SCL was sensitive to perturbation magnitude, whereas evidence for a duration-related difference in mean SCL was limited.