Anouk van der Weiden, Kirsten I. Ruys, & Henk Aarts Utrecht

Utrecht University
A Matter of Matching:
How goals and primes affect self-agency experiences
Anouk van der Weiden, Kirsten I. Ruys, & Henk Aarts
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; 2012
Introduction
The experience of causing ones own actions and resulting outcomes has been shown arise when outcomes match either a conscious intention or an
outcome prime (e.g., Aarts, Custers, & Wegner, 2005; Sato, 2009). Yet, other than outcome primes, goals evoke control processes that deal with
monitoring and feedback processing (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1998), processes that may be important when outcomes mismatch one’s goal. Goals and
primes may thus differ in their effects on experiences of self-agency over mismatching outcomes.
Methods
In three experiments, employing both spatial (Exp. 1 & 3) and semantic (Exp.
2) tasks, participants repeatedly performed actions that could lead to multiple
outcomes. Importantly, the computer could also determine the outcome
randomly. In reality, the computer always determined the outcomes.
Results
EXPERIMENT 1
6,0
EXPERIMENT 2
4,5
prime
goal
goal
5,5
4
5,0
Over each outcome, participants were asked to what extent they felt that they
were the one that caused the presented outcome.
prime
4,5
3,5
4,0
3,5
3
3,0
Self-agency was manipulated by pre-activating (by means of conscious
intentions versus outcome primes) an outcome that matched or mismatched
the actual outcome fully (Exp. 1 & 2) or to varying degrees (Exp. 3), just
before performing the action and observing the outcome.
2,5
2,5
match
match
mismatch
mismatch
Matching
Matching
EXPERIMENT 3
6,0
Warning/
Warning/
(goal)
goal
Prime
1x
interval
interval
Start cue
Start
cue
PAY
ATTENTION
7x
mask
mask
Goal
5,5
(prime)
prime
mask
mask
Stop at
SOAP
START
interval
interval
YDJSK
3000 ms
3000
ms
SOAP
500
500 ms
ms
Until
Until
response
response
1x
mask
mask
interval
PQOWI
Stop
Stop cue
cue
HDIJEM
CZKFID
170 ms
170
ms
30
30 ms
ms
170
170 ms
ms
mask
mask
LDGAIZ
empty
empty
SWPJLV
30
30 ms
ms
effect
effect
5,0
STOP
170
170 ms
ms
SOAP
30
30 ms
ms
170
170 ms
ms
Until
Until
response
response
100
100 ms
ms
1000
1000 ms
ms
4,5
TIME
Spatial task where stopping the moving squares
causes the participant’s and the computer’s
square to stop on a certain location. Yet, only
one of the locations is presented as an outcome,
rendering the cause of the outcome ambiguous.
Semantic task where a rapid succession of letter strings ostensibly masks the alternation of
four outcome words (glass, soap, chalk, book). Stopping the sequence, causes it to stop on
one of the four outcome words (cf., like a slot machine in which one stops rapidly rolling
symbols by pushing a button). Participants believed that the outcomes were either the result of
their own reaction time or that is was randomly determined by the computer.
4,0
3,5
match
mismatch1
Discussion
Goals affect experienced self-agency according to an all-or-none principle. Only when outcomes fully match the
goal, people experience self-agency. When merely primed with the outcome, however, people experience selfagency over a range of outcomes, depending on whether they are associated with the primed outcome.
This divergence has important implications for current models on the emergence of self-agency experiences and for
processes associated with goal-achievement, such as emotion and motivation.
mismatch2
mismatch3
mismatch4
Matching
References
Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. M. (2005). On the
inference of personal authorship: Enhancing experienced
agency by priming effect information. Consciousness and
Cognition, 14, 439-458.
Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1998). On the self-regulation
of behavior. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Sato, A. (2009). Both motor prediction and conceptual
congruency between preview and action-effect contribute
to explicit judgment of agency. Cognition, 110, 74-83.