A German translation and validation of the sense of agency scale.

Sense of agency refers to the experience of controlling one's actions and through them events in the outside world. General agency beliefs can be measured with the Sense of Agency Scale (SoAS), which consists of the sense of positive agency subscale (i.e.

Using position rather than color at the traffic light - Covariation learning-based deviation from instructions in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Based on instructions people can form task representations that shield relevant from seemingly irrelevant information. It has been documented that instructions can tie people to a particular way of performing a task despite that in principle a more efficient way could be learned and used. Since task shielding can lead to persistence of inefficient variants of task performance, it is relevant to test whether individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - characterized by less task shielding - are more likely and quicker to escape a suboptimal instructed variant of performing a task.

Spontaneous discovery of novel task solutions in children.

Children often perform worse than adults on tasks that require focused attention. While this is commonly regarded as a sign of incomplete cognitive development, a broader attentional focus could also endow children with the ability to find novel solutions to a given task. To test this idea, we investigated children's ability to discover and use novel aspects of the environment that allowed them to improve their decision-making strategy.

Lack of Automatic Vocal Response Learning While Reading Aloud.

Research on implicit sequence learning with the Serial Reaction Task (SRT) has demonstrated that people automatically acquire knowledge about fixed repeating sequences of responses and can transfer response sequence knowledge to novel stimuli. Such demonstrations are, however, mostly limited to setups with visual stimuli and manual responses. Here we systematically follow up on scarce attempts to demonstrate implicit sequence learning in word reading.

It Was Me: The Use of Sense of Agency Cues Differs Between Cultures.

Sense of agency (SoA) is the sense of having control over one's own actions and through them events in the outside world. SoA may be estimated by integrating different agency cues. In the present study, we examined whether the use of different agency cues - action-effect congruency, temporal relation between action and effect, and affective valence of effects - differs between Eastern (Mongolian) and Western (Austrian) cultures.

Incidental covariation learning leading to strategy change.

As they approach a traffic light, drivers and pedestrians monitor the color (instructed stimulus feature) and/or the position of the signal (covarying stimulus feature) for response selection. Many studies have pointed out that instructions can effectively determine the stimulus features used for response selection in a task. This leaves open whether and how practice with a correlating alternative stimulus feature can lead to a strategy change from an instructed to a learned variant of performing the task.

In and out of control: brain mechanisms linking fluency of action selection to self-agency in patients with schizophrenia.

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one's actions, and their consequences. It involves both predictive processes linked to action control, and retrospective 'sense-making' causal inferences. Schizophrenia has been associated with impaired predictive processing, but the underlying mechanisms that impair patients' sense of agency remain unclear.

Intentional binding of two effects.

An action that produced an effect is perceived later in time compared to an action that did not produce an effect. Likewise, the effect of an action is perceived earlier in time compared to a stimulus that was not produced by an action. Despite numerous studies on this phenomenon-referred to as Intentional Binding effect (IB)-the underlying mechanisms are still not fully understood.

There is more into 'doing' than 'knowing': The function of the right inferior frontal sulcus is specific for implementing versus memorising verbal instructions.

In the present study we examine the mechanism underlying the human ability to implement newly instructed stimulus-response mappings for their future application. We introduce a novel procedure in which we can investigate the processes underlying such implementation while controlling for more general working-memory demands. The results indicate that a region within the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the vicinity of the inferior frontal sulcus (IFS) is specifically recruited when new instructions are implemented compared to when new instructions are memorised.

Learning through instructions vs. learning through practice: flanker congruency effects from instructed and applied S-R mappings.

We compared flanker congruency effects (FCE) for flanker stimuli that were part of merely instructed S-R mappings or S-R mappings that had already been practiced. Four new S-R mappings were instructed before each block of trials. In applied flanker blocks, each instructed stimulus could appear as target and as flanker.

Medial prefrontal cortex predicts internally driven strategy shifts.

Many daily behaviors require us to actively focus on the current task and ignore all other distractions. Yet, ignoring everything else might hinder the ability to discover new ways to achieve the same goal. Here, we studied the neural mechanisms that support the spontaneous change to better strategies while an established strategy is executed.

Transferring control demands across incidental learning tasks - stronger sequence usage in serial reaction task after shortcut option in letter string checking.

After incidentally learning about a hidden regularity, participants can either continue to solve the task as instructed or, alternatively, apply a shortcut. Past research suggests that the amount of conflict implied by adopting a shortcut seems to bias the decision for vs. against continuing instruction-coherent task processing.

Action and perception in social contexts: intentional binding for social action effects.

The subjective experience of controlling events in the environment alters the perception of these events. For instance, the interval between one's own actions and their consequences is subjectively compressed-a phenomenon known as intentional binding. In two experiments, we studied intentional binding in a social setting in which actions of one agent prompted a second agent to perform another action.

Instruction-based response activation depends on task preparation.

An increasing number of studies have demonstrated that a response in one task can be activated automatically on the basis merely of instructed stimulus-response (S-R) mappings belonging to another task. Such instruction-based response activations are considered to be evidence for the formation of S-R associations on the basis of the S-R mappings for an upcoming, but not yet executed, task. A crucial but somewhat neglected assumption is that instructed S-R associations are formed only under conditions that impose a sufficient degree of task preparation.

Instruction-based task-rule congruency effects.

In the present study, we investigated the functional characteristics of task sets that were never applied before and were formed only on the basis of instructions. We tested if such task sets could elicit a task-rule congruency effect, which implies the automatic activation of responses in the context of another task. To this end, a novel procedure was developed that revealed instruction-based task-rule congruency effects in 2 experiments.

Implicit sequence learning based on instructed task set.

How does the way we code and control actions influence automatic skill acquisition processes? Wenke and Frensch (2005) showed that instructions can lead participants to code spatial responses based on color. Here, we tested in 3 experiments to what extent response labeling and instruction-based response coding can determine what is learned in implicit sequence learning. Instructions mapped 4 gray shape stimuli to 1 of the 4 keys each in a serial reaction task, referring to the keys in terms of either their color or their spatial location.

An online neural substrate for sense of agency.

"Sense of agency" refers to the feeling of controlling an external event through one's own action. On one influential view, sense of agency is inferred after an action, by "retrospectively" comparing actual effects of actions against their intended effects. In contrast, a "prospective" component of agency, generated during action selection, and in advance of knowing the actual effect, has received less attention.

Effects of feature integration in a hands-crossed version of the Social Simon paradigm.

In previous research, hands-crossed versions of a social variant of the Simon task were used to distinguish between effector-based coding of the Social Simon effect (SSE, analogously to the standard Simon effect) or body-based coding, in which the coding of stimulus location and seating position of the participants functions as a spatial reference frame. In the present study, the analysis of the SSE with respect to previous task requirements (i.e.

Imagery of errors in typing.

Using a typing task we investigated whether insufficient imagination of errors and error corrections is related to duration differences between execution and imagination. In Experiment 1 spontaneous error imagination was investigated, whereas in Experiment 2 participants were specifically instructed to imagine errors. Further, in Experiment 2 we manipulated correction instructions (whether or not to correct errors) and controlled for visual feedback in executed typing (letters appearing on the screen or not).

The shielding function of task sets and its relaxation during task switching.

The goal of the presented experiments was to investigate the dynamic interplay of task shielding and its relaxation during task switching. Task shielding refers to the finding that single task sets in terms of 2-choice categorization rules help shielding against distraction from irrelevant stimulus attributes. During task switching, this shielding should temporarily be relaxed to prevent the perseveration of the previous task, on the downside making the system more vulnerable toward the intrusion of irrelevant information.

Trial-to-trial sequential dependencies in a social and non-social Simon task.

Recent research has shown that joint-action effects in a social Simon task provide a good index of action co-representation. The present study aimed to specify the mechanisms underlying joint action by considering trial-to-trial transitions. Using non-social stimuli, we assigned a Simon task to two participants.

Disrupting the experience of control in the human brain: pre-supplementary motor area contributes to the sense of agency.

The feeling of controlling events through one's actions is fundamental to human experience, but its neural basis remains unclear. This 'sense of agency' (SoA) can be measured quantitatively as a temporal linkage between voluntary actions and their external effects. We investigated the brain areas underlying this aspect of action awareness by using theta-burst stimulation to locally and reversibly disrupt human brain function.

Subliminal priming of actions influences sense of control over effects of action.

The experience of controlling one's own actions, and through them events in the outside world, is a pervasive feature of human mental life. Two experiments investigated the relation between this sense of control and the internal processes involved in action selection and cognitive control. Action selection was manipulated by subliminally priming left or right keypress actions in response to a supraliminal visual target.