Was it me or was it you? How the sense of agency originates from ideomotor learning revealed by fMRI
Abstract
One fundamental property of voluntary action is the feeling of control and causation, also referred to as self agency. Recent research suggests that the sense of agency is based on low-level, sensory-motor control processes, which compare predicted and actual action-effects. Brain imaging research revealed that the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) plays a crucial role for signalling whether a sensory action-consequence matches the prediction or not. However, while it was assumed that sensory outcome predictions are based on ideomotor (action-effect) learning, it has rarely been investigated whether such learning can lead to a sense of agency. In this functional MRI experiment we tested whether a sense of agency develops from learning action-effect associations. In the first part of the experiment, participants learned new action-effect associations. During the following scanning session participants were exposed to matching and non-matching action-effects. In accordance with previous behavioural research, participants reported a decreased sense of agency for non-matching events. As predicted, activity in the TPJ increased with greater incongruence between predicted and actual sensory effects. Furthermore, attributing the causation of sensory events to another person was correlated with activity in fronto-median cortex, a region involved in the representation of intentional agents. This relationship was modulated by the external attribution disposition of the participants. Comp…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The judgment of agency has been linked with activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the fronto-median cortex.
“The judgment of agency has been linked with activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, the fronto-median cortex (Spengler et al., 2009; Miele et al., 2011; Zito et al., 2020), indicating that this process requires high-order, conceptual mechanisms.”
From The Forward Model: A Unifying Theory for the Role of the Cerebellum in Motor Control and Sense of Agency (2021) · cites this paper as Spengler et al., 2009
The dorsal fronto-median cortex is associated with explicit assignments of agency.
“the dorsal fronto-median cortex has been associated with explicit assignments of agency (Spengler et al., 2009)”
From Alteration of hypnotic experience following transcranial electrical stimulation of the left prefrontal cortex (2023) · cites this paper as Spengler et al., 2009
Cites
Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition
Amodio, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2006) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn1884 · Cited by 3,782 · see citing works
Forman, S. D., Cohen, J. D., Fitzgerald, M., Eddy, W. F., Mintun, M. A., & Noll, D. C. (1995) · Magnetic Resonance in Medicine · doi:10.1002/mrm.1910330508 · Cited by 3,202 · see citing works
Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science.
Gallagher, S. (2000) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01417-5 · Cited by 2,881 · see citing works
Das Reafferenzprinzip: Wechselwirkungen zwischen Zentralnervensystem und Peripherie
von Holst, E., & Mittelstaedt, H. (1950) · Naturwissenschaften · doi:10.1007/bf00622503 · Cited by 2,655 · see citing works
Perception and Action Planning
Prinz, W. (1997) · European Journal of Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1080/713752551 · Cited by 2,013 · see citing works
A multimodal cortical network for the detection of changes in the sensory environment
Downar, J., Crawley, A. P., Mikulis, D. J., & Davis, K. D. (2000) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/72991 · Cited by 947 · see citing works
The extended language network: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on text comprehension
Ferstl, E. C., Neumann, J., Bogler, C., & von Cramon, D. Y. (2008) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.20422 · Cited by 703 · see citing works
Derrfuss, J., Brass, M., Neumann, J., & von Cramon, D. Y. (2005) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.20127 · Cited by 606 · see citing works
The Out-of-Body Experience: Disturbed Self-Processing at the Temporo-Parietal Junction
Blanke, O., & Arzy, S. (2005) · The Neuroscientist · doi:10.1177/1073858404270885 · Cited by 469 · see citing works
Arzy, S., Thut, G., Mohr, C., Michel, C. M., & Blanke, O. (2006) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0745-06.2006 · Cited by 415 · see citing works
Self and other in the human motor system.
Schütz-Bosbach, S., Mancini, B., Aglioti, S. M., & Haggard, P. (2006) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2006.07.048 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The inferior parietal lobule and temporoparietal junction: A network perspective
Igelström, K. M., & Graziano, M. S. A. (2017) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.01.001 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
Control of shared representations relies on key processes involved in mental state attribution
Spengler, S., von Cramon, D. Y., & Brass, M. (2009) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.20800 · Cited by 170 · see citing works
Self-citationWelniarz, Q., Worbe, Y., & Gallea, C. (2021) · Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnsys.2021.644059 · Cited by 125 · see citing works
Distinguishing Self and Other in Joint Action. Evidence from a Musical Paradigm
Novembre, G., Ticini, L. F., Schutz-Bosbach, S., & Keller, P. E. (2012) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr364 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
Neural correlates of sense of agency in motor control: a neuroimaging meta-analysis
Zito, G. A., Wiest, R., & Aybek, S. (2020) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0234321 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Stress-sensitive inference of task controllability
Ligneul, R., Mainen, Z. F., Ly, V., & Cools, R. (2022) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01306-w · Cited by 60 · see citing works
What makes the dorsomedial frontal cortex active during reading the mental states of others?
Isoda, M., & Noritake, A. (2013) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2013.00232 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Deschrijver, E., Wiersema, J. R., & Brass, M. (2017) · Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3758/s13415-016-0485-5 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Self-citationRonningstam, E. (2014) · Personality Disorders Theory Research and Treatment · doi:10.1037/per0000034 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Perri, R. L., & Di Filippo, G. (2023) · International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.ijchp.2022.100346 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
A systematic review and meta-analysis on the neural correlates of bodily self-consciousness
Brunello, N., Diana, L., Sritharan, J., Glisic, M., Nef, T., Verma, R. K., & Zito, G. A. (2025) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106420 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Spengler, S., von Cramon, D. Y., & Brass, M.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
- Ghent University (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Spengler, Stephanie
- ORCID
- Brass, Marcel
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-05-15
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 290-298
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1976741599
- Cited by
- 145
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 4.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Free Will and Agency
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Keywords
- sense of agency, action-effect associations, temporoparietal junction, prediction error, voluntary action, self-control, prefrontal cortex, personality traits
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted, Internal-External Control, Learning, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Perception
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
