Friday, September 24, 2010

afferent feedback and the sense of ownership

In the involuntary action, there is the sense of ownership but there is not the sense of agency.

In this case, proprioceptive, kinesthetic and visual informations tells me that I am moving. The awareness of involuntary movement derives from afferent sensory feedback. But there are no efferent motor commands. This means that the sense of ownership is based on the sensory feedback.

The experiments of rubber hand illusion shows that it is enough with sensory feedback in order to create the sense of agency. The participants start to feel that the rubber hand belongs to himself/herself by being stroked synchronously on the real hand.