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Did I Do That? Brain–Computer Interfacing and the Sense of Agency

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Abstract

Brain–computer interfacing (BCI) aims at directly capturing brain activity in order to enable a user to drive an application such as a wheelchair without using peripheral neural or motor systems. Low signal to noise ratio’s, low processing speed, and huge intra- and inter-subject variability currently call for the addition of intelligence to the applications, in order to compensate for errors in the production and/or the decoding of brain signals. However, the combination of minds and machines through BCI’s and intelligent devices (IDs) can affect a user’s sense of agency. Particularly confusing cases can arise when the behavioral control switches implicitly from user to ID. I will suggest that in such situations users may be insecure about the extent to which the resulting behavior, whether successful or unsuccessful, is genuinely their own. Hence, while performing an action, a user of a BCI–ID may be uncertain about being the agent of the act. Several cases will be examined and some implications for (legal) responsibility (e.g. establishing the presence of a ‘guilty mind’) are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Wegner refers to e.g. Geschwind et al. (1995). However, in the literature a more refined usage of terminology can be observed. E.g. Marchetti and Della Sala (1998) suggest to disentangle alien hand (the feeling of nonbelonging of a hand) from anarchic hand (complex goal-directed movements of a hand performed against the subject’s will, who is incapable of voluntary inhibiting them). More recently Aboitiz et al. (2003, p. 252) distinguish “at least five broad categories” subsumed under the alien hand label. Scepkowski et al. (2003) provide a detailed review of the neuroscientific data and the variety of assessment methods underlying the difficulty in establishing clear subtypes. See also further discussions of sense of agency in relation to schizophrenia (Daprati et al. 1997; Blakemore et al. 2002a, b, 2003), or automatisms (Bargh and Ferguson 2000; Bargh and Williams 2006). It is not the purpose of this paper to go into these issues in detail, so suffice it to say that, given Wegner’s usage of the alien hand case, the label ‘anarchic hand syndrome’ seems more appropriate.

  2. Jason Farquhar, personal communication.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Rutger Vlek, Sebo Uithol, Jan van Acken, Frank Leoné and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The research was made possible through funding from the BrainGain research consortium.

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  1. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Spinozagebouw, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Pim Haselager

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Haselager, P. Did I Do That? Brain–Computer Interfacing and the Sense of Agency. Minds & Machines 23, 405–418 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-012-9298-7

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