Elsevier

Consciousness and Cognition

Volume 11, Issue 4, December 2002, Pages 481-487
Consciousness and Cognition

Attention to action and awareness of other minds

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1053-8100(02)00022-3Get rights and content

Abstract

We have only limited awareness of the system by which we control our actions and this limited awareness does not seem to be concerned with the control of action. Awareness of choosing one action rather than another comes after the choice has been made, while awareness of initiating an action occurs before the movement has begun. These temporal differences bind together in consciousness the intention to act and the consequences of the action. This creates our sense of agency. Activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex is associated with awareness of our own actions and also occurs when we think about the actions of others. I propose that the mechanism underlying awareness of how our own intentions lead to actions can also be used to represent the intentions that underlie the actions of others. This common system enables us to communicate mental states and thereby share our experiences.

Section snippets

Awareness of action

Will, the sense of being in control of our own actions is a major component of consciousness (along with emotion and cognition). But are we aware of all aspects of our own actions? Milner and Goodale (1995) have intensively studied a patient, known as DF, who demonstrates a striking lack of awareness of certain aspects of her own action. As a result of damage to her inferior temporal lobe DF suffers from form agnosia. In other words, she is unable to perceive the shapes of things. She cannot

Neural correlates of awareness of action

We may get clues about the function of awareness of action by studying the neural correlates of this awareness. The basic experimental paradigm is to try and keep the action the same while varying awareness. In one study reported by Jueptner et al. (1997), subjects learned a choice reaction time task in which there were four stimuli corresponding to four keys. The stimuli came on in a sequence, which repeated exactly every eight trials. As subjects learned this sequence, their responses became

References (34)

  • D.C. Dennett

    The intentional stance

    (1987)
  • F.B.M. De Waal

    Intentional deception in primates

    Evolution of Anthropology

    (1992)
  • C.D. Frith et al.

    Interacting minds—a biological basis

    Science

    (1999)
  • A. Goldman

    Interpretation psychologized

    Mind Language

    (1989)
  • S.T. Grafton et al.

    Functional mapping of sequence learning in normal humans

    Human Brain Mapping

    (1995)
  • P. Haggard et al.

    On the relation between brain potentials and awareness of voluntary movements

    Experimental Brain Research

    (1999)
  • P. Haggard et al.

    Localising awareness of action with transcranial magnetic stimulation

    Experimental Brain Research

    (1999)
  • Cited by (97)

    • Libet's legacy: A primer to the neuroscience of volition

      2024, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
    • The role of anterior and midcingulate cortex in emotional awareness: A domain-general processing perspective

      2019, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
      Citation Excerpt :

      In addition, cingulotomy surgery has been used as a last-ditch effort to treat intractable pain, with the effect of reducing its affective/distressing components (i.e., that motivate actions aiming to make the pain cease; Brotis et al., 2009; Wilkinson et al., 1999). Interestingly, aMCC also activates during attention to one's own actions (Vogt et al., 1992; Passingham, 1996; Frith, 2002), and stimulation of this region has been observed to elicit vocalizations in laboratory animals (Gooler and O’Neill, 1987) and a felt “urgency to act” in humans (Talairach et al., 1973). The posterior MCC (pMCC) is more generally known to contain motor units (Dum and Strick, 2002).

    • The Neurology of Consciousness: An Overview

      2015, The Neurology of Consciousness: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropathology
    • The pre-reflective experience of "I" as a continuously existing being: The role of temporal functional binding

      2015, Consciousness and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      This implies, first, that all the preparatory stages leading up to overt action may occur in the mental simulation of action. These preparatory stages include not just the activation of the motor commands but also the construction of at least two models, one model of the efference commands, and one model of the anticipated sensory consequences of the action (Blakemore, 2003; Blakemore, Frith, & Wolpert, 1999; Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 2002; Desmurget & Sirigu, 2009; Frith, 2002, 2005; Grush, 2004; Haggard, 2005; Waszak et al., 2012; Wolpert & Flanagan, 2001; Wolpert et al., 1995). The anticipated sensory consequences include those things that are temporally bound to the action in intentional binding.

    • Examining intention in simulated actions: Are children and young adults different?

      2014, Consciousness and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      Several definitions have been applied to the term intention. In the context of action processing, we associate it with ‘choice with commitment’ (Cohen & Levesque, 1990), and for our interests, ‘intention [commitment] to act and the consequences of the action‘ (Frith, 2002). Searle (1983) also complements the general idea by suggesting that intention initiates a transaction between mind and environment by representing the end or aim of the action before the action is undertaken.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text