The Effects of Agency on Attentional Selection and Control

When our actions cause predictable outcomes in the environment we experience a sense of agency, or a feeling of control over an object or situation. Recently, this sense of agency, or one’s interactions with the physical world, has been shown to bias attention. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how the sense of agency might affect the ways in which we selectively attend to objects. In the first experiment, I utilized eye tracking to explore how and when agency-driven selection is deployed while interacting with the environment. I then discussed a set of experiments which examined the possible mechanisms underlying the connection between a sense of agency and attentional selection. I then presented work identifying how agency-driven attentional selection interacts with simultaneously presented endogenous (words) and exogenous (color singletons) environmental cues. The final experiment investigated the possibility that the attentional benefits gained from the sense of agency compound over time. Together, these studies show that not only does the sense of agency play a significant role in the allocation of attention, but that this agency-driven selection is a robust and dynamic phenomenon.

当个体的行为在所处环境中引发可预测的结果时，便会产生能动感 (sense of agency)——即对某一客体或情境施加控制的主观感受。近年来，已有研究证实，这种能动感，或是个体与物理世界的交互行为，会对注意力产生偏倚影响。本论文旨在探究能动感如何影响我们选择性关注客体的方式。在第一项实验中，我采用眼动追踪技术，探究了个体与环境交互时，受能动感驱动的注意力选择是如何启动、何时发生的。随后，我阐述了一系列实验研究，旨在考察能动感与注意力选择之间关联的潜在认知机制。之后，我展示了相关研究成果，阐明了受能动感驱动的注意力选择与同时呈现的内源性 (endogenous)（词语）、外源性 (exogenous)（颜色单特征刺激 (color singletons)）环境线索之间的交互模式。最后一项实验则探究了：从能动感中获得的注意力益处是否会随时间发生累积。综上，本系列研究表明：能动感不仅在注意力分配中发挥着关键作用，且这种受能动感驱动的注意力选择是一种稳健且动态的认知现象。