Intentional action and limitation of personal autonomy. Do restrictions of action selection decrease the sense of agency?

Abstract

The experience of being an intentional agent is a key component of personal autonomy. Here, we tested how undermining intentional action affects the sense of agency as indexed by intentional binding. In three experiments using the Libet clock paradigm, participants judged the onset of their action (key presses) and resulting effect (auditory stimuli) under conditions of no, partial, or full autonomy over selecting and timing their actions. In all cases, we observed a moderate to strong intentional binding effect. However, we found no evidence for an influence of personal autonomy on intentional binding. These findings thus suggest that being unable to decide how and when to perform actions does not affect the perceived temporal binding between action and effect, a phenomenon suggested to be associated with the implicit sense of agency. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of research on personal autonomy and goal-directed behavior.