Was it me? - Filling the interval between action and effects increases agency but not sensory attenuation

- Self-produced events give rise to feelings of agency and sensory attenuation.
- Both phenomena have previously been assumed to be tightly linked.
- Feelings of agency increase when action-effect delays are filled rather than unfilled.
- Sensory attenuation, by contrast, is not affected by filling an action-effect delay.
- This indicates a partial dissociation of agency and sensory attenuation.

Sensory stimuli resulting from one's own actions are perceptually attenuated compared to identical but externally produced stimuli. This may enable the organism to discriminate between self-produced events and externally produced events, suggesting a strong link between sensory attenuation and a subjective sense of agency. To investigate this supposed link, we compared the influence of filled and unfilled action-effect delays on both, judgements of agency for self-produced sounds and attenuation of the event-related potential (ERP). In line with previous findings, judgments of agency differed between both delay conditions with higher ratings for filled than for unfilled delays. Sensory attenuation, however, was not influenced by filling the delay. These findings indicate a partial dissociation of the two phenomena.