The sense of agency can be manipulated in virtual reality by biasing the feedback

Literature proposes several predictors of BCI performance related to the Sense of Agency. In other words, users would perform better when they feel in control. This could theoretically explain why positively biased feedback enable an increase of performance. We are currently testing this hypothesis in a BCI experiment in which we explore the behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of the sense of agency… Results to come!

In the same vein, we would like to investigate the extent to which this sense of agency also influences the efficiency of therapies such as the neurofeedback or therapies in virtual environments….

Therefore, we designed and implemented a protocol based on virtual reality (VR) that aimed at manipulating the participants’ sense of agency. We validated this protocol (see the paper and video below).

• C. Jeunet, L. Albert, F. Argelaguet, A. Lécuyer,“‘Do you feel in control?’: Towards Novel Approaches to Characterise, Manipulate and Measure the Sense of Agency in Virtual Environments”, IEEE Transactions in Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) special issue of the IEEE Virtual Reality (VR) conference, vol 24, issue 4, pp. 1486-1495, 2018 – DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2018.2794598 – pdf
• C. Jeunet, B. N’Kaoua, F. Lotte, “Advances in user-training for mental-imagery based BCI control: Psychological and cognitive factors and their neural correlates“, Progress in Brain Research, 2016 – pdf

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Uncovering EEG markers of the sense of agency

Now, the next step consists in investigating the EEG correlates of the sense of agency. This is what Martin Guy, PhD student, is currently doing. We will provide exciting results soon…

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The team