@phdthesis{Liesner2022,
  author    = {Liesner, Marvin Paul},
  title     = {I control it, but does it mean it is part of me? How the relationship between body movements and controlled object movements influences the sense of agency and the sense of ownership},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-28703},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-287030},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {The "active self" approach suggests that any object we manipulate voluntarily and foreseeably becomes part of our "self" in the sense that we feel control over this object (sense of agency) and experience it as belonging to our own body (sense of ownership). While there is considerable evidence that we can indeed experience both a sense of agency and a sense of ownership over a broad variety of objects when we control these through our actions, the approach has also been criticized for exaggerating the flexibility of the human self. In this thesis, I investigate the influence that the relationship between the body movements controlling an object and the movements of the object itself has on the process of integrating an object into the self. I demonstrate that fully controlling an object is not sufficient for it to be integrated into the self since both explicit and implicit measures of the sense of agency and the sense of ownership indicate less or no integration when body movements are transformed into inverted object movements. Furthermore, I show that such inversions lead to the downregulation of sensory signals either from the body or from the controlled object in order to deal with the conflicting multisensory information when performing such actions. I argue that this downregulation is the underlying factor behind the diminished or eliminated integration of inverted body and object movements and I discuss further pathways for possible future studies building up on these findings.},
  subject      = {Experimentelle Psychologie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{RiechelmannverhSteinbacher2021,
  author    = {Riechelmann [verh. Steinbacher], Eva Katharina},
  title     = {Gaze interaction: Cognitive mechanisms of oculomotor action control},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-21527},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-215279},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Humans use their eyes not only as visual input devices to perceive the environment, but also as an action tool in order to generate intended effects in their environment. For instance, glances are used to direct someone else's attention to a place of interest, indicating that gaze control is an important part of social communication. Previous research on gaze control in a social context mainly focused on the gaze recipient by asking how humans respond to perceived gaze (gaze cueing). So far, this perspective has hardly considered the actor's point of view by neglecting to investigate what mental processes are involved when actors decide to perform an eye movement to trigger a gaze response in another person. Furthermore, eye movements are also used to affect the non-social environment, for instance when unlocking the smartphone with the help of the eyes. This and other observations demonstrate the necessity to consider gaze control in contexts other than social communication whilst at the same time focusing on commonalities and differences inherent to the nature of a social (vs. non-social) action context. Thus, the present work explores the cognitive mechanisms that control such goal-oriented eye movements in both social and non-social contexts. The experiments presented throughout this work are built on pre-established paradigms from both the oculomotor research domain and from basic cognitive psychology. These paradigms are based on the principle of ideomotor action control, which provides an explanatory framework for understanding how goal-oriented, intentional actions come into being. The ideomotor idea suggests that humans acquire associations between their actions and the resulting effects, which can be accessed in a bi-directional manner: Actions can trigger anticipations of their effects, but the anticipated resulting effects can also trigger the associated actions. According to ideomotor theory, action generation involves the mental anticipation of the intended effect (i.e., the action goal) to activate the associated motor pattern. The present experiments involve situations where participants control the gaze of a virtual face via their eye movements. The triggered gaze responses of the virtual face are consistent to the participant's eye movements, representing visual action effects. Experimental situations are varied with respect to determinants of action-effect learning (e.g., contingency, contiguity, action mode during acquisition) in order to unravel the underlying dynamics of oculomotor control in these situations. In addition to faces, conditions involving changes in non-social objects were included to address the question of whether mechanisms underlying gaze control differ for social versus non-social context situations. The results of the present work can be summarized into three major findings. 1. My data suggest that humans indeed acquire bi-directional associations between their eye movements and the subsequently perceived gaze response of another person, which in turn affect oculomotor action control via the anticipation of the intended effects. The observed results show for the first time that eye movements in a gaze-interaction scenario are represented in terms of their gaze response in others. This observation is in line with the ideomotor theory of action control. 2. The present series of experiments confirms and extends pioneering results of Huestegge and Kreutzfeldt (2012) with respect to the significant influence of action effects in gaze control. I have shown that the results of Huestegge and Kreutzfeldt (2012) can be replicated across different contexts with different stimulus material given that the perceived action effects were sufficiently salient. 3. Furthermore, I could show that mechanisms of gaze control in a social gaze-interaction context do not appear to be qualitatively different from those in a non-social context. All in all, the results support recent theoretical claims emphasizing the role of anticipation-based action control in social interaction. Moreover, my results suggest that anticipation-based gaze control in a social context is based on the same general psychological mechanisms as ideomotor gaze control, and thus should be considered as an integral part rather than as a special form of ideomotor gaze control.},
  subject      = {Verhaltenskontrolle},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Weller2019,
  author    = {Weller, Lisa},
  title     = {How to not act? Cognitive foundations of intentional nonactions},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-17667},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-176678},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Human actions are generally not determined by external stimuli, but by internal goals and by the urge to evoke desired effects in the environment. To reach these effects, humans typically have to act. But at times, deciding not to act can be better suited or even the only way to reach a desired effect. What mental processes are involved when people decide not to act to reach certain effects? From the outside it may seem that nothing remarkable is happening, because no action can be observed. However, I present three studies which disclose the cognitive processes that control nonactions. The present experiments address situations where people intentionally decide to omit certain actions in order to produce a predictable effect in the environment. These experiments are based on the ideomotor hypothesis, which suggests that bidirectional associations can be formed between actions and the resulting effects. Because of these associations, anticipating the effects can in turn activate the respective action. The results of the present experiments show that associations can be formed between nonactions (i.e., the intentional decision not to act) and the resulting effects. Due to these associations, perceiving the nonaction effects encourages not acting (Exp. 1-3). What is more, planning a nonaction seems to come with an activation of the effects that inevitably follow the nonaction (Exp. 4-5). These results suggest that the ideomotor hypothesis can be expanded to nonactions and that nonactions are cognitively represented in terms of their sensory effects. Furthermore, nonaction effects can elicit a sense of agency (Exp. 6-8). That is, even though people refrain from acting, the resulting nonaction effects are perceived as self-produced effects. In a nutshell, these findings demonstrate that intentional nonactions include specific mechanisms and processes, which are involved, for instance, in effect anticipation and the sense of agency. This means that, while it may seem that nothing remarkable is happening when people decide not to act, complex processes run on the inside, which are also involved in intentional actions.},
  subject      = {Intention},
  language  = {en}
}