Temporal dynamics of cue integration for sense of agency in social comparative context.

Abstract

Cue integration theory suggests that the sense of agency arises from the interaction of multiple cues, weighted by their reliability and availability. However, whether this integration is dynamic or static remains unclear. This study explored the potential dynamics of cue integration by examining the interplay between internal and external cues in social comparison contexts. Participants in the two experiments controlled a circle to a target location, with the circle's motion either fluent or disfluent. After completing the task, the participants received feedback on their performance relative to others, delivered in either a social (hand gestures in Experiment 1) or non-social format (arrow symbols in Experiment 2), presented either before or after they provided agency ratings. Results revealed that both socially and non-socially formatted feedback influenced agency ratings for future actions (forward modulation) as well as for past actions (backward modulation). Notably, a dynamic pattern of integration was evident only between socially formatted feedback and motion fluency: under disfluent motion, forward and backward effects of socially formatted feedback intensified over time. Conversely, with fluent motion, the impact of socially formatted feedback diminished over time. These findings underscore the complexity of cue integration, indicating a need to incorporate temporal dynamics into cue integration theory.