Machine Translated by Google

Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-022-06345-3

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Motivation(s) from control: responseÿeffect

contingency and confrmation of sensorimotor predictions
reinforce different levels of selection

Eitan Hemed1 · Noam Karsh1,2 · Ilya MarkÿTavger1 · Baruch Eitam1

Received: 6 March 2021 / Accepted: 4 March 2022 / Published online: 22 March 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022

Abstract
Humans and other animals live in dynamic environments. To reliably manipulate the environment and attain their goals they
would benefit from a constant modification of engine-responding based on responses' current effect on the current
environment. It is argued that this is exactly what is achieved by a mechanism that reinforces responses which have led to
accurate sensorimotor predictions. We further show that evaluations of a response's effectiveness can occur simultaneously,
driven by at least two different processes, each relying on different statistical properties of the feedback and affecting a
different level of responding. Specifically, we show the continuous effect of (a) a sensorimotor process sensitive only to the
conditional probability of effects given that the agent acted on the environment (ie, action-effects) and of (b) a more abstract
judgment or inference that is also sensitive to the conditional probabilities of occurrence of feedback given in the action by
the agent (ie, inaction-effects). The latter process seems to guide action selection (eg, should I act?) while the former the
manner of the action's execution. This study is the first to show that different evaluation processes of a response's
effectiveness infuence different levels of responding.

Keywords Sense of agency · Reward · Motivation · Action effectiveness

Introduction
Notwithstanding substantial scientific attention, how humans
establish a Sense of Agency (SOA)—whether detecting
which events were affected by their actions (Chambon and
Haggard 2013) or predicting which events will be so affected
(Gozli 2019) is an open question with multiple implications .
An accurate SOA allows us to predict and evaluate the
consequences of our actions and to behave in an effective
manner to achieve our goals (eg, grabbing a piece of choco
late). Reinforcing behavior that effectively controls the envi
ronment, regardless of any desirable outcomes, can serve
as a strategy for maintaining a biological advantage (Skinner
Communicated by Melvyn A. Goodale.
* Eitan Hemed
Eitan.Hemed@gmail.com
1
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
two
1965). Consistent with this claim, some have argued that
executing control over the environment is itself reinforcing
(Eitam et al. 2013; Higgins 2011, 2019; Hull 1943; Wen
2019; White 1959), possibly through similar neural path
ways as “actual” tangible rewards (Redgrave et al. 2008;
Redgrave and Gurney 2006).
Empirical work has accumulated to show that responses
that lead to predictable, value-free perceptual changes (ie,
action-effects) are reinforced, both in human infants as
young as 2 months old (Hauf et al. 2004; Watanabe and
Taga 2006 , 2011; Zaadnoordijk et al. 2018, 2016) and
adults (Bakbani-Elkayam et al. 2019; Eder et al. 2017; Eitam et al.
2013; Hemed et al. 2019; Karsh and Eitam 2015a; Karsh et
al. 2016, 2020; Penton et al. 2018; Tanaka et al. 2021).
Given that previous work strongly suggests that SOA,
indicating control over the environment might serve as a
reinforcer, the current work moves beyond to determine
what is the statistical evidence by which this process
determines when to reinforce a response.
Note that unpacking the function by which this process

Department of Psychology, Academic College of Tel-Hai, operates is uniquely important to our basic understanding
Qiryat Shemona, Israel of reward processes. This is because that differing from

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1472 Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497

other primary reinforcers, reinforcement from effectiveness
is solely computational. What we mean is that unlike any
other known primary reinforces, it lacks any robust hedonic
or experiential aspect such as sweetness, sexual pleasure,
or pain (cf., Haggard 2005). This lack of a hedonic
component accompanied by reinforcing capacities is, among
other things, strong evidence for the dissociation between
reinforcing and hedonic experience.
Unlike sensorimotor driven SOA, conceptually driven
SOA has not been associated with a single mechanism.
Given this, a reasonable assumption is that judgments of
own agency are similar to other subjective judgments of
causality; or more generally, of whether events co-occur
(Gozli 2019; Wegner and Wheatley 1999).
Judgments of causality and coÿoccurrence

The statistics of reinforcement from effectiveness The co-occurrence of events has been termed contingency,
and describes the difference between the conditional prob
A model that explains how effective actions are reinforced, ability of an event (E; eg, reward) given a condition (R; eg,
must first account for how the brain, mind, or person rec instrumental response) and the conditional probability of
ognizes that an action is effective in changing the that event barring the condition("Contingency"; APA
environment and which of these can be shown to lead to reinforce dictionary, VandenBos 2007). Contingency in this sense
ment. Most modern accounts of the SOA state that there ranges between perfect positive contingency (1; when the
are two distinct (although possibly interconnected) types of reward appears only following the response) and perfect
SOA—conceptual and sensorimotor (also known as explicit negative contingency (ÿ1; when the reward is given only in
and implicit, or judgment of Agency vs. feeling of agency; the absence of the response). One of the term's main
Moore et al. 2009b; Saito et 2015 ; Synofzik et al. 2008; applications in psychological science is in the study of the
Wen and Haggard 2020; Wen et al. 2015; for a recent review effect of contingency on behavior and judgments of causality.
see Wen 2019). For example, the ÿP rule ('Delta-P'; [P(E|R) ÿ P(E| E|
The sensorimotor SOA is assumed to be generated by ¬R)]; Rescorla 1967). In the context of instrumental behavior,
an internal model that relies solely on sensorimotor input positive values of Delta-P describe a positive association
('Comparator'; Blakemore et al. 1998; Carruthers 2012; between a response and reward, were found to lead to
Haggard and Eitam 2015; Wolpert et al. 1995). Arguably, higher response frequencies while smaller (negative) values
the following sequence is activated once a motor program of Delta-P led to reduced response frequencies. This pattern
is produced: a forward model predicts the action's effect on has been established for non-human animals responding to
the environment and then a comparator component gain food or water (eg, Hammond 1980) and for humans
compares the sensorimotor prediction to the perceived responding to secondary reinforcers (eg, monetary gains;
action-effect. If the comparison yields little to no prediction Liljeholm et al. 2011; Shanks and Dickinson 1991; Vallée
error, agency over the specifc action effect is felt or judged. Tourangeau et al. 2005) .
It should be kept in mind that the 'comparator' itself only Even more pertinent to our current case is that the value
provides a sensory prediction error following an action. The of Delta-P has been found to correlate with judgments of
comparator itself does not entail knowledge about the causality (including self-causality; Liljeholm et al. 2011;
control an action gives one over the environment. However, O'Callaghan et al. 2019; Shanks and Dickinson 1991; Vaghi
as we elaborate below, this sensorimotor prediction can et al. 2019; Van Hamme and Wasserman 1994; Wasserman
serve in the evaluation of the effectiveness of an action—and drive its 1983)
et al. reinforcement.
and action-selection or operant learning (Elsner
Regardless of how the comparator can be used to and Hommel 2004; Hammond 1980; Liljeholm et al. 2011;
estimate control, in recent years doubts emerged regarding Shanks and Dickinson 1991).
the sensorimotor modularity of the comparator, or at least Given the above, Delta-P seems to be a very reasonable
about the sensorimotor modularity of the measures candidate for capturing the functional relationship between
hypothesized, sometimes tacitly, to be driven by its working environmental events and people's conceptual judgments
such as intention tional binding (Haggard et al. 2002) and of SOA or effectiveness (Moore et al. 2009a). These
sensory attenuation (Blakemore et al. 1998). These doubts judgments, as was shown for desired outcomes, should
are driven by multiple demonstrations that these behavioral affect action selection (frequency of responding) if SOA
measures are biased by high-level knowledge and cognitions indeed is reinforcing on that level of response selection.
that should not be available to the Comparator (Aarts et al. Another important outcome of utilizing Delta-P as a func
2012; Barlas and Obhi 2014; Berberian et al. 2012; Buehner tional description of the conceptual SOA is that it also leads
2015; Chris tensen et al., 2019; Desantis et al., 2011, 2012; Dogge
to anet interesting
al. prediction of dissociation between the
2012; Gentsch et al. 2015; Haering and Kiesel 2012; Lynn statistics that underlie the conceptual and sensorimotor SOA's.
et al. 2014; Moore et al. 2009a, b; Pfster et al. 2014; Preston Specifically, committing to the above functional relation
and Newport 2010; Takahata et al. 2012). constrains the candidate algorithms (or mental mechanisms)

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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
and effectively rules out the operation of a sensorimotor
mechanism such as the comparator described above (De
Houwer and Moors 2015). This is because the comparator's
prediction-efect-comparison sequence described above is
initiated if and only if a motor-program is sent to production
(ie, a forward model). As this does not occur in the case of
inaction such a mechanism is incapable of tallying per
ceptual changes that follow inaction as it does not generate
a prediction when no engine program is sent to production
(for more on inactions, see the “General discussion ” ). Thus,
the functional relationship between the environmental input
and sensorimotor SOA must be different.
As we elaborate below, based both on our own work
(Eitam et al. 2013; Hemed et al. 2020; Karsh and Eitam
2015a; Karsh et al. 2016, 2020) and others' previous work
(Penton et al. 2018; Tanaka et al. 2021; Watanabe and Taga
2011) we argue that only the sensorimotor predictability of
the efects infuences the sensorimotor SOA.
More formally, in terms of contingency, if it indeed relies
on an eference copy the functional relationship between
sensorimotor SOA and the environmental input should fol
low the strength of the conditional probability of the occur
rence of an effect only given a motor response (ie, a
sensorimotor prediction) or P(E|R). Consequently, the
reinforcing effects of sensorimotor driven SOA, if such exist,
should follow only P(E|R) and not contingency or Delta-P
(which is [P(E|R)ÿP(E|¬R)]) .
While our previous conceptual and empirical work strongly
suggests that sensorimotor SOA is modular and hence
should infuence (reinforce) mostly the execution of motor
programs and not the selection of actions; as another model
of SOA suggests that sensorimotor SOA may infu ence the
more abstract level of action selection by indirectly affecting
the postdictive or conceptual SOA (Synofzik et al. 2008) or
by some other phenomenal hedonic feeding experience into
the conceptual SOA (eg, ' fuency'; Chambon and Haggard
2012).
The current study was designed to empirically test
whether the contribution of the different sources of SOA to
response selection and execution can be dissociated based
on the above functional relationships.
The current study
In the current study, participants performed a task previously
shown to reliably capture reinforcement from effectiveness
on reaction time (presumably due to sensorimotor SOA;
Hemed et al. 2019 ; Karsh et al. 2016) which we modified to
also capture the potential effect of reinforcement on response
frequency. The task is a variant of a choice reaction-time
task introduced by Eitam and colleagues (Eitam et al. 2013),
where participants' viewed on each trial an imperative cue
and were asked to respond with the spatially-mapped
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key. Pending experimental condition, responses to
imperative cues lead to either no visual change, to a value-
free action-effects, or a similar yet lagged action effect. In
that study, the responses of participants in the immediate
action effect condition were the quickest, while participants
in the no-feedback or lagged action-effect conditions were
(equally) slower. Although response speed was highest with
immediate action-effects, there was no difference in accuracy
between immediate, lagged or no action-effects conditions.
It is important to keep in mind that both participated pants in
the immediate and lagged action-efects conditions receive
performance feedback (as they must respond cor rectly to
receive action-efects), still lagged action-efects resulted in
response speed that was as slow as that of the no-feedback
condition. This comes to show that the facility
tation in response speed displayed in the task is not due to
receiving performance feedback. In addition, another
experiment in the above study had participants under all
conditions also view a score counter, showing a sum that
increased with correct responses; yet only participants that
received imme diate action-effects were faster to respond.
Reaction time facilitation due to neutral own-action 'effects'
was recently replicated by our group (Karsh et al. 2016;
Experiment 1a) as well as others (Tanaka et al. 2021).
Further studies provided additional evidence that the
facilitation of response speed due to immediate action effects
does not depend on performance feedback, but most likely
on sensorimotor SOA driving reinforcement of actions. In
these studies (Karsh et al. 2016, Experiments 2a–2b),
participants performed the same task, but the location of the
action-effect was either spatially predictable or spatially
unpredictable, surrounding the imperative cue.
Spatially unpredictable action-effects led to response times
that were as slow as those on the no action-effects condi
tion. This again shows that performance feedback is not
what facilitates response time in the task, as participants
receiving spatially perturbed action-effects had to press the
correct key to receive the action-effects, but they were still
slower compared to the participants in the spatially predictable condition .
A replication of the above comparison between spatially
predictable and unpredictable action-effects was recently
obtained (Hemed et al. 2020).
Finally, additional evidence ruling out the possibility that
response time change in our task is due to performance feed
back comes from a different task. In this task, participants
viewed an imperative cue at the center of the screen and
were required to pick a key at random on each trial, such
that there are no correct or incorrect responses. Still,
response time decreased if responding to the cue resulted
in immedi ate action-effects, compared with lagged or no
action-effect (Karsh and Eitam 2015a; Karsh et al. 2016, Experiment 1b).
Given these findings, it is very likely that the facilitation
in response time in the task used here is due to
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changes in sensorimotor SOA, as found in previous studies
utilizing implicit measures of agency for spatial and temporal
perturbation (eg, Barlas and Kopp 2018).
Findings from explicit reports and judgments of agency
from our previous studies also support the argument that
changes in response time comes from changes in
sensorimotor SOA (Eitam et al. 2013; Karsh et al. 2016).
In conditions in which the action-effects are lagged or
spatially-perturbed participants' subjective judgments of
agency (ie, conceptual SOA) are the same whether receiving
immediate, spatially predictable or lagged action-effects.
Relatedly, participants usually maintain similar levels of
response frequency regardless of temporal action-effect
delay (in a free-choice rather than cued task; Karsh and
Eitam 2015a). The latter shows that conceptual SOA as
termed above, might be mostly insensitive to spacial and
temporal features of feedback, when judging cau sality on
the person or deliberate-level. It should be noted that while
delays could reduce response frequency (Karsh et al. 2021),
it is not fully clear how delays actually impact conceptual
SOA (Wen 2019; see “General discussion”).
Such a dissociation fts the differentiation between a
conceptual vs. sensorimotor SOA as well as their differential
infuence on levels of the response selection and execution
process. In the current study, we focus on this dissociation.
To systematically test this ostensibly different sensitivity
we manipulated the presence of action-effects and inaction
effects (ie, effects occurring in the absence of a preceding
action), using either a free operant procedure (Experiments
1 and 2a–2b) or a cued Go /No-Go task (Experiments 3a–3b).
Given the above we predicted the following:
(a) action-effects trigger the sequence that generates a
sensorimotor SOA and consequently credits (ie, rein
forces) the effective motor-programs. (b) This form of
reinforcement is argued to operate on a non-conceptual
level; therefore, (b1) it will be sensitive to the conditional
probability P(E|R) rather than to Delta-P, that also
involves P(E|¬R) and (b2) as this form of SOA credits
a specifc engine program it will affect only the very
specific manner of execution here measured as
response speed and not the 'volitional aspects' of the
response (Brass and Haggard 2008), here measured
as response frequency. (c) A conceptual, regularity-
detecting, mechanism of SOA will consider both action and
inaction-effects and hence
will be captured by Delta-P. The conceptual mecha
nism is argued to be detached from the motor-system
(Wen and Haggard 2020; but see Synofzik et al. 2008),
so it can modulate actions through inputting to action
selection processes—the “whether and what to do”
measured here as response frequency.
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
The study consists of fve experiments that test the same
hypotheses using different experimental designs. To facilitate
itate understanding of the findings, the pattern of results
across experiments is also depicted as a forest plot (see
Fig. 7, “General discussion”).
Try 1
Methods
Participants
We recruited 65 students from Tel-Hai Academic College,
to participate for either course credit or ~ 6$. 68% of them
were female, ages 19–33 (M=24.89, SD=2.39).
Previous studies (Eitam et al. 2013; Karsh et al. 2016,
2020) found that contingent, immediate action-effects lead
to the facilitation of response speed compared with a
condition in which responses are never followed by action-
effects. The most basic finding comes from a two-samples t-
test comparing the no action-effects condition and the
immediate action effects condition (Bakbani-Elkayam et al. 2019; Eitam et
2013; Karsh et al. 2016, 2020). The standardized effect size
for this comparison ranged between Cohen's d of 0.5 and
1.2, we estimate the population standardized effect size at
0.8. Yet here differing from previous studies, participants
were instructed to select at random whether to respond or
not on each trial. Thus, due to the novelty of the task, no
power analysis was conducted before the collection of the
data, as this experiment served as sort of a pilot for the current study.
Experiment 1 included four conditions. However, in terms
of power, we refer only to the two conditions that are most
similar to those from previous studies. In the current study,
these are the action-effects present, inaction-effects present
condition and the action-effects absent, inaction-effects
absent condition. Given that and with roughly 15 partici
pants per group (given random assignment), we had a
statistical post hoc power (1ÿÿ) of~0.7 for detecting a
Cohen's d of~0.8. Such an effect-size is consistent with
those found in previous studies. However, we should note
that we did not opt for an effect size that is based on an
ANOVA, for several reasons. First, previous comparisons
between the two conditions described above (action-effects
vs. no-action effects), provide us with a benchmark for pair-
wise comparisons between the action-effects present,
inaction-effects absent condition and all others. Second,
ANOVAs performed in previous studies were irrelevant as
they were performed as a one-way analysis of differences in
response time between several experimental conditions (eg,
immediate action effects, action-effects with short or long
temporal lags and no-action effects; Eitam et al. 2013). This
sort of evidence would be meaningless as for a two-way analysis with an
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
Fig. 1 Method and predictions. A The four conditions and the feedback
scheme they received. B A depiction of an exemplary trial (dashed line not
shown to the participant and is included for illustration only). C The visual
appearance of trials with no effects (left panel) or with action-/inaction-
effects (right panel). D Idealized predicted pattern of results. We predict that
response speed (left plot) will be facilitated by the presence of action-effects
(green and blue
interaction. Finally, predicting a specific effect size based
on an ANOVA would be uninformative when testing the
difference between the baseline condition and the absent,
inaction-effects present condition. Unrelated to the
discussion above, we had no prediction about the effect
size of the differences in response frequency, given the
lack of previous evidence.
design and task
Throughout the study, we manipulated the presence and
absence of action-efects and inaction-efects, yielding four
experimental conditions (see Fig. 1A)—(a) action-efects
present, inaction-efects present, (b) action-efects present ,
inaction-effects absent, (c) action-effects absent, inaction
efects present and (d) (a) action-effects absent, inaction
efects absent. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly
assigned to one of these experimental conditions,
manipulated between subjects.
The task used was a four-alternative choice reaction
time task, where on each trial an imperative cue appeared
in one of four locations (with a 0.25 probability for the cue
to appear in any of the four locations). The cue moved down
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vs. orange and gray bars) but will not be affected by whether inaction-
effects are present or absent (green and orange vs. blue and gray bars). In
contrast, response frequency (left plot) is predicted to be facilitated by the
presence of action-effects compared with their absence (green and blue vs.
orange and gray bars) and reduced by the presence of inaction-effects
(green and orange vs. . blue and gray bars)
on the screen for 950 ms (the response window; see Fig.
1B and C), followed by an ITI of 1150 ms, and only then
the next cue appeared (on previous studies a response
window of 850 ms and an ITI of 700 ms was used, similar
to Experiments 2–3 in the current study). Participants were
instructed to voluntarily decide whether to respond to the
cue or with hold their response when the cue appeared,
and to take care to respond on 70% of the trials. No
feedback was given to the participants about their actual
response frequency during the experiment. The instructions
did not mention the possibility of action- or inaction-effects
at any point on any of the experiments.
Participants in the two action-effects present conditions
received feedback if they responded correctly during the
response window. For subjects in the inaction-effects
present conditions, there was an 80% chance of receiving
feedback if they did not respond. A correct response meant
pressing the spatially mapped key, either 'S', 'D', 'K' or
'L' (eg, 'S' and 'K' for the depictions in Fig. 1B and C, respectively) .
Only the frst response was recorded, so participants were
not able to correct their response if they frst responded
using an incorrect key. Feedback of consisting of the cue
turning white for 100 ms and vanishing for the remainder of the
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response window (a 'fash'). Regardless of response time
and whether feedback was given or not, the duration of the
response window and ITI were kept constant. Trials were
deemed as No-Response trials if no response (either correct
or incorrect) was detected until a timepoint late in the
response window (randomly sampled from a uniform
distribution between 600 and 700 ms from cue onset). There
was no special alert (eg, error message) given an incorrect
response, late, or no response. Based on our experience
with the task, we predicted that very few trials will be slower
than 600 ms—the typical mean RT in the task is within 400–
500 ms with a standard deviation of 30–60 ms (Eitam et al.
2013 ; Karsh et al. 2016).
Procedure and apparatus
Participants signed an informed consent form, entered a
soundproof dimly lit room, and were asked to decide on each
trial whether to respond or withhold their response while
maintaining a 70% response frequency across the experiment.
They were further instructed that if they do choose to respond
then they should do as quickly and accurately as possible.
They performed ten practice trials (during which the
experimenter gave verbal feedback on their performance)
followed by 240 task trials. The experiment ended with a self-
report questionnaire, followed by a demographics queries
and debriefng.
The experiment was programmed in PsychoPy 2 v.1.84
(Peirce 2007). Stimuli were presented on a Samsung
Syncmaster 943BM monitor with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz.
Responses were collected with a standard PC keyboard.
Results
Data were pre-processed with Stata (StataCorp 2015).
Statistical analyzes were carried out in R through RPy2
(Gau tier 2021, 2018), mainly using afex (Singmann et al.
2015) and BayesFactor (Morey et al. 2018). Plots were
generated using Python's Seaborn (Waskom 2018).
data preprocessing
Note that percentages of trials filtered by each screening
criterion overlap, as a trial can be classified as invalid based
on more than one criterion such as when a response is both
slow and incorrect. Similarly, a participant can be an outlier
both in terms of response speed and response frequency.
The screening criteria were based on previous studies (Eitam
et al. 2013; Hemed et al. 2019; Karsh et al. 2016).
Crucially screening did not change the qualitative pattern of
results—for a side-by-side comparison of the analyzes
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
repeated on both fltered and unfltered data see Supplemen
tary Materials.
No-Response trials (18.71% of raw data; trials with no
response or a response that is slower than the random time
point described above) were not analyzed. Response trials
were further labeled as valid or invalid based on several
criteria. A total of six outliers (±2SD) participants, in either
Response-Frequency (three participants, 4.6%) or Response
Time (four participants, ~ 6.2%) were filtered out (9.23% of
N=65) . Out of the remaining subjects (90.77% of raw data),
incorrect responses (~ 3.6%; not the correct key was
pressed), fast responses (0.02%; below 200 ms), and slow
responses (4.27%; above 700 ms) were also fltered out. All
filtration of invalid Response trials resulted in the loss of
16.25% of the raw data.
data analyzes
We defned response speed as the mean response time (RT)
elapsing from the presentation of the imperative cue until a
keypress and response frequency (RF) as the percentage tri
als in which the participant responded (rather than with
holding her response or responding later than the timepoint
described above) out of the total number of experimental
block trials. For testing our two main hypotheses, we ran a
between-subject 2×2 ANOVA—action-effects (present,
absent) × inaction-effects (present, absent). We ran the
ANOVA for predicting RT and RF, separately. As post hoc
tests we compared the action-effects present, inaction-effects
absent condition to all other between-subject conditions. We
selected this condition as the baseline for comparison given
previous studies used a variation of the same task. Due to
unequal variances (here and on Experiment 3a), the inde
pendent-samples t test was corrected using the Welch–Sat
terthwaite correction for degrees of freedom. The 95% CI for
the Cohen's d reported on the t tests were calculated using
the 'efsize' R package (Torchiano and Torchiano 2020), for
the between-subject and within-subject designs as
recommended by Cohen (1988) and Gibbons et al . (1993),
respectively. Additionally, the frequentist analyzes were sup
plemented by comparable Bayesian t tests, which are crucial
given our null hypothesis that inaction-effects do not influence
RT. For the Bayesian tests, we selected an uninformed prior
(Cauchy ÿ0=0, ÿ=0.707) and sampled 10,000 observations
from the posterior distribution on each analysis. Note that all
of the individual contrasts specified below are also plotted as
standardized effect sizes in Fig. 7 in the “General discussion”.
For group descriptive statistics of response and frequency,
see Fig. 2A and B below, for response accuracy see
supplementary materials.
First, we analyzed RT data (see Fig. 2A and C). As
predicted, presence of action-effects facilitated RT (with a
large effect size) [F(1, 55)=21.35, p<0.0001, Partial-ÿ2=0.280],
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497 1477

Fig. 2 Experiment 1. Response speed increases with the presence of action-
effect but is insensitive to the presence or absence of inaction-effects (A–
C). Response frequency on the other hand, is weakly facilitated by the
presence of action-effects and inhibited by the presence of inaction-effects
(B–D). A and B Individual and group means
of response time (A) and response frequency (B). Error bars indicate 95%
CI of estimated marginal means. Dashed lines indicate the grand average.
C and D) Bayesian Estimation of the contrasts between the action-effects
present, inaction-effects absent condition, and all other conditions.
Horizontal lines indicate 95% HDI

while neither inaction-effects [F(1, 55)=0.19, p=0.660, (ÿ 0.74, 0.76), BF 1:0 = 0.34].1 Compared to baseline,
Partial-ÿ2=0.003], nor the interaction term [F(1, RT was significantly slower on the action-effects absent
55)=0.21, p = 0.650, Partial-ÿ2= 0.004] had any
significant effect on RT. We continued by comparing
the baseline condition (action-effects present, inaction- 1
A Bayes Factor greater than 3 or smaller than 0.33 is considered by
effects absent) to all other conditions. For the key convention to be the minimal conclusive ratio (See Jefreys 1998; Kruschke
comparison, and in accord with our expectations, there and Liddell 2018); a Bayes factor of 3 means that the alter native hypothesis
is three times more likely than the null hypothesis given the data (for support
was no difference in RT between the two action-effects
in the null, simply use the inverse of the Bayes factor ratio).
present conditions [Two tail—t(28) = 0.02, p = 0.983, Cohen's d = 0.01, 95% CI

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conditions—regardless of whether inaction-effects were
present [Upper-tail—t(19)=2.96, p=0.004, Cohen's d=1.21,
95% CI (0.32, 2.10), BF 1:0 =15.75] or inaction -effects were
absent [Upper-tail—t(30)=3.79, p<0.001, Cohen's d=1.28,
95% CI (0.50, 2.06), BF 1:0=66.73].
Regarding RF (response-frequency; see Fig. 2B and D,
an identical two-way between-subject ANOVA found an
insignificant infuence on response frequency by action-
effects [F(1, 55)=2.96, p=0.090, Partial -ÿ2=0.050], with a
significant influence of inaction-effects [F(1, 55)=7.69,
p=0.008, Partial-ÿ2=0.120] and no interaction between the
two [F(1, 55)=1.16 , p =0.290, Partial - ÿ2=0.020 ] . higher
on the base line condition, with an insignifcant difference
(Bayesian: insensitive result) [Lower-tail—t(28)=ÿ1.43,
p=0.082, Cohen's d=ÿ0.52, 95% CI (ÿ1.28, 0.24), BF
1:0=1.31].
We found that response frequency was signifcantly higher
on the baseline condition compared with the action-efects
absent, inaction-efects present condition [Lower-tail— t(16)
= ÿ 2.61, p = 0.010, Cohen's d = ÿ 1.11, 95% CI (ÿ1.99,
ÿ0.23), BF 1:0=10.05], but not signifcantly different than the
condition in which both action-effects and
inaction-effects were absent [Lower-tail—t(31)=ÿ0.53,
p=0.299, Cohen's d=ÿ0.18, 95% CI (ÿ0.9, 0.53), BF 1:0=0.50].
Try 2a
The results of Experiment 1 supported the notion that action-
effects facilitate response speed, but inaction-effects do not. Participants
Crucially, the Bayesian analysis supported the null
hypothesis for no difference between both conditions in
which action-effects were present (see Fig. 2C). Regarding
our hypothesis that a calculation that considers both action-
effects and inaction-effects could facilitate response
frequency, we found support for infuence from inaction
effects, but the pattern is not as clear as with response speed. ies (Cohen's d=0.8) when comparing conditions similar to
The pattern may not match our prediction that both action
effects and inaction-effects infuence response frequency;
Regarding response frequency, the pattern we found is that
inaction-effects robustly reduce response frequency, and
that action-effects facilitates response frequency but to a
lesser degree (see the ANOVA analysis above). Most
importantly for our theoretical purposes, the data do clearly
show that differing from response speed—inaction effects
are infuen tial for response frequency (sometimes exclusively 2 we used a within-subject design, and each condition was
so; see Fig. 7 for comparison of all effect sizes on the study). blocked (the block order was random for each participant to
There were two specific caveats that we wanted to
address in the following experiments. The first being
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
that participants did not receive feedback regarding their
response frequency and responded on a greater proportion
of trials than they were asked to (>80%, instead of ~70%).
Therefore, in Experiment 2a, we aimed to better control the
ratio of required Response and No-Response trials. The
second concern was that inaction-effects (No-response trials
on inaction-effects present conditions) appeared at random
timing but also relatively late in the response window. The
late ness of the inaction-effects could have helped
participants differentiate between own-action effects and
spontaneously occurring, inaction-effects, and possibly for
that reason inaction-effects did not infuence response
speed. However, that would not explain why we found
evidence for an influence of inaction-effects on response frequency.
Finally, it could also be the case that inaction-effects
would have affected RT if they were less delayed and such
a fnding would seriously challenge our explanation of our
basic fnding here and in previous studies (Eitam et al. 2013)
—facilitation of RT . This is because our current explanation
is that RT is facilitated by reinforcement of a specifc motor
program that is credited—using the comparator's
(sensormotor SOA) output as its input—with causing the
perceptual effect. If it would have been consistently found
that RT is facilitated in inaction-effects present conditions
this explanation would be falsified.
As such in Experiment 2a we sought to equate the timing
of action- and inaction-effects by titration inaction-effects to
participants' response speed. Finally, given the large indi
vidual differences found in Experiment 1, we opted for using
a more sensitive, repeated-measures design.
Methods
Twenty-fve naïve students from the University of Haifa were
recruited, 88% female, ages 21–29 (M =24.4, SD =0.42).
As we had no experience with the current task in a within
subject design, we estimated that the effect would be like
the one found on between-subject designs in previous stud
the inaction-effects absent conditions in the current study.
The sample allowed us to detect a similar effect in a within
subject design with a power of~0.98.
design and task
The experiment included the same four experimental
conditions as in Experiment 1 (see Fig. 1), but for Experiment
cancel out order effects). Each block was 200-trials long (4
cue locations×50 repetitions, in random order).
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
As in Experiment 1, if no response was given up to a certain
timepoint, the trial was considered a No-Response trial.
Here, the timepoint was initially set to 500 ms. However,
following the first correct response, the timepoint was
recalculated on each additional trial to be the 75th percentile
plus 1 standard deviation of all previous correct response times.
This gave participants enough time to respond, without
arbitrarily truncating the RTs distribution's right tail and
signifcantly blurred the difference in timing of action- and
inaction-effects. On the inaction-efect present conditions, the
probability of an inaction-efect was 1 and not 0.8 as in
Experiment 1. Additionally, participants were instructed to
respond on 50% of the trials, the ITI was 700 ms and the
number of repetitions for each cue location was equal.
Procedure and apparatus
The instructions were read to the participants who then
proceeded to complete four experimental blocks, separated by
self-paced breaks. During the break, participants were noti fed
of their cumulative response frequency by an on-screen
message and were reminded to maintain a 50% response
frequency. The equipment was identical to Experiment 1 except
those stimuli were now presented on a BENQ XL2420T
screen.
Results
Data pre-processing
No-Response trials (53.47% of raw data; trials in which par
participants did not respond or responded later than the time
point described above) were not analyzed. We filtered out 7
(28% of N=25) participants, all of whom had less than 20 valid
trials on at least one experimental condition which precluded
calculating a reliable estimate of their RT (Sim mons et al.
2011) . One of these was also an outlier (±2SD) in both
response speed and frequency. For the remaining subjects
(72% of raw data), we fltered incorrect responses (~4.89%),
and fast responses (0.4%; below 200 ms). Filtration of invalid
response trials (both complete participants and individual trials)
resulted in a loss of 31.59% of the data.
Applying these flters did not modify the pattern of results (see
Supplementary Materials section).
data analyzes
We used a repeated-measures ANOVA and paired t tests, in
line with Experiment 2a's design. First, we analyzed RT data
(plotted in Fig. 2A and C). For the ANOVA, we used the
Greenhouse–Geisser correction for sphericity (here and in the
following within-subject experiments). A two-way within-subject
ANOVA matched our prediction regarding
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response speed—we found a signifcant efect for action effects
[F(1, 17)=6.4, p=0.020, Partial-ÿ2=0.270] but no infuence of
inaction-effects [F(1, 17)=0.62, p= 0.440, Partial-ÿ2 = 0.040] or
an interaction [F(1, 17) = 1.30, p=0.270, Partial-ÿ2=0.070]. We
followed by comparing the baseline condition (action-effects
present, inaction effects absent) to all other conditions. As
predicted, we found no difference between the baseline
condition or the action-effects present, inaction-effects present
condition [Two-tail—t(17)=0.12, p=0.904, Cohen's d=0.02, 95%
CI (ÿ0.35 , 0.40), BF 1:0=0.24]. In contrast to our prediction, in
this experiment we did not fnd that RTs were faster in this
condition compared with action-efects absent, inaction-efects
present [Upper-tail—t(17)=0.93, p=0.182, Cohen's d =0.17,
95% CI (ÿ0.200, 0.54), BF 1:0=0.57].
Finally, we found the predicted slower RT on the condition
where both action-effects and inaction-effects were absent
compared [Upper-tail—t(17) = 2.50, p = 0.011, Cohen's d=0.39,
95% CI (0.06, 0.73), BF 1:0=5.31].
A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA was used to test the
effect of action-effects and inaction-effects on response
frequency (see Fig. 3B–D). It showed that the efect of action-
effects on response frequency is signifcant [F(1, 17)=14.96,
p=0.001, Partial-ÿ2=0.470], but the efect of inaction-effects was
not [F(1, 17 ) = 0.12, p = 0.730, Partial-ÿ2=0.007] and neither
was the interaction [F(1, 17) = 2.86, p = 0.110, Partial-ÿ2=
0.140]. We continued by comparing the action-effects present,
inaction-effects absent condition to all others. We found that
response frequency was nominally lower when both action-
efect and inaction-effects were present, but the comparison
was not signifcant and insensitive by Bayesian terms [Lower-tail
— t(17)=ÿ1.47, p=0.080, Cohen 's d=ÿ0.52, 95% CI (ÿ1.28,
0.24), BF 1:0=1.10]. As predicted, we found lower response
frequency when only inaction-effects were present [Lower tail—
t(17)=ÿ2.93, p=0.005, Cohen's d=ÿ0.94, 95% CI (ÿ1.73, ÿ0.16),
BF 1 :0=11.08] or when both action- or inaction-effects were
absent [Lower-tail—t(17)= ÿ3.73, p=0.001, Cohen's d=ÿ1.27,
95% CI (ÿ2.2, ÿ0.34), BF 1:0=47.64].
Experiment 2b
The results of Experiment 2a were similar to those of
Experiment 1 while controlling for the difference in the timing of
the inaction-effects and variance in response frequency. An
unexpected finding in Experiment 2a was that the action effects
absent, inaction-effects present condition was as fast as the
baseline, action effects only, condition. If found to be robust
this finding would falsify our theoretical position that the
facilitation of response speed stems from a sensorimo tor
process based on an eferent copy (ie, Comparator),
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1480
Fig. 3 Experiment 2a. Response speed increases with the presence of
action-effect but is practically insensitive to the presence or absence of
inaction-effects (A–C). Response frequency is facilitated by the presence
of action-effects, and nominally lowered by the presence of inaction-effects
(a non-significant interaction; B–D). A and B Individual and group means of
response time (A) and response frequency
as such a process must be indifferent to events that are
not preceded by an action. Crucially, an inspection of the
forest plot depicted in Fig. 7 shows that this result is an
oddball suggesting that it is a statistical fuke.
In Experiment 2b, we aimed to replicate Experiment 2a
while timing inaction-effects more in line with that used in
Experiment 1 (ie, a random timepoint not titrated to the
participant). Additionally, we increased experimental
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
(B). Error bars indicate 95% CI of estimated marginal means. Dashed lines
indicate the grand average. C and D Bayesian Estimation of the contrasts
between the action-effects present, inaction-effects absent condition, and
all other conditions. Horizontal lines indicate 95% HDI
control by instructing subjects not to balance their response
frequency across blocks (see below). Experiment 2b served
another purpose that is not directly related to the current
work and hence these parts are discussed only in the
Supplementary materials section. Experiment 2b was
similar to Experiment 2a but included two additional
between-subject conditions in which instead of value-free
feedback par participants received feedback indicating attainment of eith
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
negligible or substantial sums of money. We did so initially to
allow a comparison of value-free feedback to studies in which
a similar free-operant procedure with tangible outcomes was
used (O'Callaghan et al. 2019; Shanks and Dickinson 1991;
Vaghi et al. 2019). As this discussion is not directly relevant
to the model underlying 'pure' effectiveness, which is the
focus of the current study, only the value-free feedback is
presented in the main text, with the additional between-
subject conditions appearing in the Sup supplementary
materials. Experiment 2b was pre-registered on OSF (Hemed
et al. 2017).2
Methods
Participants
Forty-One naïve students from the University of Haifa were
recruited. 77% of which were female, ages 23–27 (M=24.43,
SD=3.85). We did not conduct an a-priori power analysis, but
the current sample (41) and design allows to detect of an
effect size of ~0.4 (as found on the action-effects present,
inaction-effects absent vs. action-effects absent , inaction
effects absent contrast of Experiment 2a, for the RT data)
with a power of ~0.85. We indicate the effect size found on
Experiment 2a as this was the frst time we used the current
task in a within-subject design.
Task, procedure, and apparatus
Excluding the monetary-gain conditions mentioned above,
Experiment 2b was identical to Experiment 2a save for two
further changes. First, the timepoint for determining whether
the current trial is a No-Response trial was sampled from a
pre generated normal distribution of 200 values (ÿ=650 ms,
ÿ=40; based on the results of Experiment 2a and designed
to ensure that the timing of inaction-effects was (a) not late
in the trial and (b) would not truncate the response win dow).
Second, between blocks participants were informed of the
percentage of trials in which they responded during the recent
block (rather than the cumulative percentage as in Experiment
3) and were reminded to maintain a rate of 50% throughout
the coming block. The purpose of this modification was to
ensure that participants would not try to balance their
responses across blocks but would treat each
two
The experiment was pre-registered on OSF (Hemed et al. 2017) and we
present it with all its conditions for the sake of completion (see Supplementary 35)=0.12, p=0.73, Partial-ÿ2=0.004].
materials); yet in a recently published series of experiments (Karsh et al.
2020) we rather frmly established that adding monetary value to a neutral
efect a response has on the environment does not facilitate response times
more than merely adding such an efect.
1481
block independently. As in Experiment 2a, block order was
randomized for each participant to avoid order effects.
Results
data preprocessing
No-Response trials (45.41% of raw data) were not analyzed.
We fltered out in total fve outliers (12.2% of N=41) which
were either extreme (± 2 SD) in RF (three participants, 4.3%)
and in RT (two participants, 5.38%) or had less than 50% of
correct responses on Response-Trials (one partici pant, ~
1.1%; which was also one of the RT-outlier partici pants). Out
of the remaining subjects (87.8% of raw data) we fltered out
incorrect responses (~5.55%), fast (0.02%; below 200 ms)
and slow responses (0.07%; above 700 ms). Filtration (both
complete participants and individual response trials) resulted
in the loss of ~17% of the data.
data analyzes
We used a repeated-measures ANOVA and paired t-tests,
as in Experiment 2a. First, we analyzed RT data (plotted in
Fig. 4A–C). A two-way within-subject ANOVA matched our
predictions—showing significant effect of action effects [F(1,
35)=11.60, p=0.002, Partial-ÿ2=0.250] and no influence of
inaction-effects [F(1, 35)=2.75, p=0.11, Partial-ÿ2=0.070] or
the interaction term [F(1, 35)=0.35, p=0.56, Partial-ÿ2=0.010].
We followed by comparing the baseline condition (action-
effects present, inaction-effects absent) to all other conditions.
As predicted, we found no difference between the action-
effects present, inaction-effects absent condition or the action-
effects present, inaction efects present condition [Two-tail—
t(35)=1.33, p=0.191, Cohen's d=0.19 , 95% CI (ÿ0.1, 0.49),
BF 1:0=0.40]. In line with our prediction, we found faster RT
for the action efects present, inaction-efects absent condition,
compared with the action-efects absent, inaction-efects
present condi tion [Upper-tail—t(35)=3.40, p= 0.001, Cohen's
d=0.51, 95% CI (0.19, 0.82), BF 1:0=39.700] and the action-
effects absent, inaction-effects absent condition t [Upper-tail
— t(35) = 3.02, p = 0.002, Cohen's d =0.29, 95% CI (0.09,
0.49), BF 1:0=16.32].
We used a two-way repeated-measures ANOVA to
analyze the RF data (see Fig. 4B–D). We found no effect of
action-effects on response frequency [F(1, 35) = 0.05, p=0.82,
Partial-ÿ2=0.002], a signifcant effect of inaction effects [F(1,
35)=5.07, p= 0.03, Partial-ÿ2=0.130] and no interaction [F(1,
We compared the action-effects present, inaction-effects
absent condition to all other conditions and found that as
predicted, response frequency was significantly lower when
both action-effect and inaction-effects were present (yet
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1482
Fig. 4 Experiment 2b. Response speed increases with the presence of
action-effect but is insensitive to the presence or absence of inaction effects
(A–C). Response frequency, on the other hand, is not influenced by the
presence of action-effects and lowered by the presence of inaction-effects
(B–D). A and B Individual and group means of
Bayesian analysis shows that the current data is insensitive)
[Lower-tail—t(35)=ÿ1.87, p=0.035, Cohen's d=ÿ0.41, 95%
CI (ÿ0.86, 0.04), BF 1:0=1.65]. We also found lower
response frequency for the contrast with action-effects
absent, inaction-effects present [Lower-tail—t(35)=ÿ1.96,
p=0.029, Cohen's d=ÿ0.46, 95% CI (ÿ0.96, 0.03 ), BF
1:0=1.90]. In contrast to our predictions, we found no
signifcant difference between the baseline condition and the
action-effects absent, inaction-effects absent condition
13
Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
response time (A) and response frequency (B). Error bars indicate 95% CI
of estimated marginal means. Dashed lines indicate the grand average. C
and D Bayesian estimation of the contrasts between the action-effects
present, inaction-effects absent condition, and all other conditions.
Horizontal lines indicate 95% HDI
[Lower-tail—t(35)=ÿ0.43, p=0.336, Cohen's d=ÿ0.10, 95%
CI (ÿ0.57, 0.37), BF 1:0=0.26].
Try 3a
In Experiments 1 and 2a–2b, in line with our hypothesis, we
found that action-effects decreased response speed, but
inaction-effects did not (and there was no interaction
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
between the two). Another, seemingly stable pattern, is an
asymmetry between the robust reduction of response
frequency by inaction-effects and the weaker influence (at
best) action-effects have on facilitating response frequency.
This pattern for response frequency was not predicted based
on previous work on 'Delta-P' (eg, Vaghi et al. 2019) as well
as our work on control feedback (Karsh and Eitam 2015a,
b). In Experiment 3a, we aimed at replicating the facilitating
effect of action effects using a more controlled, cued task
rather than a free operant procedure, given the noisiness of
the response frequency measure.
Methods
Participants
One hundred and twenty-one students at the University of
Haifa were recruited, 66% were females, ages 18–39 (M
=24.96, SD =3.47). None of them participated in our previous
experiments. We did not conduct a-priori power analysis, but
about 30 participants per group would allow us to detect a
Cohen's d of 0.8 with a statistical power ( 1ÿÿ) of~0.92 (for
the RT data contrast of action-effects present, inaction-
effects absent vs. action-effects absent, inaction efects
absent; see Experiment 1 “Participants”).
task
The trials on Experiment 3a were identical to Experiments
2a–2b, except that each trial was preceded by a 500 ms
Respond/Do not respond auditory cue (a 440 or 196 HZ
tone, respectively), followed by a 200 ms ISI and only then
by the imperative cue and the response window.
Participants were randomly allocated to one of the
experimental conditions (manipulated between subjects)
and performed only this condition throughout all experimental
blocks (three blocks, each consisting of 120 trials, 50%
Respond cue trials, 30 repetitions of each cue location in
random order ). A commission error (responding on a Do not
respond cue trial or an omission error (no response on a
Respond cue) trial did not lead to action-effects or inaction-
effects, regardless of the experimental condition. Additionally,
given the auditory cue, we had substantial control regarding
whether a participant would respond to a cue or forgo the
trial.Therefore, we titrated the timing of inaction efects to the
participants' response speed, set to the median of all correct
responses on previous Response trials, includ ing the
practice block (see below).
Procedure and apparatus
Participants were familiarized with the auditory cues and
completed a short training block (32 trials) during which
1483
the experimenter gave them vocal feedback on their
performance, but they did not receive any action-effects or
inaction-effects regardless of the experimental condition.
They then completed the three experimental blocks (120
trials each), separated by self-paced breaks. Following the
task they completed a debriefng questionnaire and the SOA
scale (Tapal et al. 2017). Responses were collected using a
response box (Empirisoft, DirectIN High-Speed Button Box).
Sounds were played through standard PC speakers.
Results
data preprocessing
No-response trials (50.82% of the raw data; trials in which
participants did not respond, regardless of the auditory cue
or the response accuracy) were not analyzed. We fltered out
eight (6.61% of N=121) outlier (±2SD) participants in either
Response Frequency (fve participants, ~ 4.1%) or Response-
Time (three participants, ~2.5%) or had less than 50% of
correct responses on Response Trials (three participant
pants, ~2.5%). Out of the remaining subjects (93.39% of raw
data) we removed incorrect responses (~1.8%), fast (0.44%;
below 200 ms) and slow responses (0.5%; above 700 ms).
Filtration of invalid Response trials (both complete participant
pants and individual trials) resulted in loss of 8.83% of the
raw data.
data analyzes
Like Experiment 1 we used the Welch–Satterthwaite cor
recction for degrees of freedom for independent samples t
test. First, we analyzed RT data (see Fig. 5A–C). As
predicted, a two-way between-subject ANOVA showed that
action-effects signifcantly infuenced RT [F(1, 109)=7.3, p =
0.008, Partial-ÿ2 = 0.060], but inaction-effects did not [F( 1,
109) = 0.24, p = 0.62, Partial-ÿ2 = 0.002] and neither did the
interaction [F(1, 109) = 0.57, p = 0.45, Partial-ÿ2=0.005]. We
continued to compare the action effect present, inaction-
effects absent condition to all other conditions. In line with
our predictions, we found no difference in RT when both
action-effects and inaction-effects were present [Two-tail—
t(56)=ÿ0.20, p=0.842, Cohen's d=ÿ0.05, 95% CI (ÿ0.58,
0.47), BF 1:0=0.27]. Addition ally, as predicted RT was
signifcantly slower on the action effects absent, inaction-
effects present condition compared with the baseline
condition [Upper-tail—t(54.48)=2.27, p = 0.014, Cohen's d =
0.60, 95% CI ( 0.06, 1.14), BF 1:0=4.28], but only nominally
slower on the action-effects absent, inaction-effects absent
[Upper-tail—t(52.63)=1.35, p = 0.092, Cohen's d = 0.36, 95
%CI (ÿ0.18, 0.9), BF 1:0=1.02].
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1484
Fig. 5 Experiment 3a. Response speed increases with the presence of
action-effect but is practically insensitive to the presence or absence of
inaction-effects (A–C). Response frequency was not influenced by the
presence of either action-effects or inaction-effects, or their interaction (B–
D). A and B Individual and group means of response time
Second, we analyzed RF data (see Fig. 5B–D). A
two-way between-subject ANOVA did not fnd a significant
effect of action-effects [F(1, 109) = 0.01, p = 0.92, Partial-
ÿ2 = 0.000], inaction-effects [F(1, 109) = 0.58, p=0.45,
Partial-ÿ2=0.005] or the interaction term [F(1, 109)=2.38,
p=0.13, Partial-ÿ2=0.020]. We continued to compare
the action-effect present, inaction-effects absent
condition to all others. In contrast to our prediction, we
found that when both action-effects and inaction-effects
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
(A) and response frequency (B). Error bars indicate 95% CI of estimated
marginal means. Dashed lines indicate the grand average. C and D
Bayesian Estimation of the contrasts between the action-effects present,
inaction-effects absent condition, and all other conditions.
Horizontal lines indicate 95% HDI
were present, response frequency was significantly
higher [Lower-tail—t(38)=ÿ1.96, p=0.029, Cohen's
d=ÿ0.52, 95% CI (ÿ1.05, 0.02), BF 1:0=2.500].
Additionally, we did not fnd the predicted lower response
frequency when action-effects were absent, regardless
of whether inaction effects were present [Lower-tail—
t(52)=0.50, p=0.689, Cohen's d = 0.13, 95 % CI ( ÿ 0.4,
0.66), BF 1:0 = 0.19] or absent [Lower-tail—t(53) = 1.17, p = 0.876, C
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
d=0.31, 95% CI (ÿ0.23, 0.85), BF 1:0=0.14], both with
Bayesian support for the null hypothesis.
Experiment 3b
In Experiment 3a, the pattern of response speed found in
Experiments 1 and 2a–2b was replicated. However, the pat
tern of results for the response frequency measure was in
contrast to the one predicted nor was it consistent with the
unpredicted pattern that was found in the other experiments
in this study. It is possible that the tightly controlled nature
of the task (using auditory cues, rather than free operant
procedure) minimized the (albeit, limited) ability of action
effects and inaction-effects to infuence response frequency,
even though participants still displayed a similar pattern of
RT to that seen in all previous experiments.
Our interim conclusion regarding the facilitating effect of
value-free effects on response frequency is weak as it is
highly sensitive to participants' interpretation of the task,
their interpretation of the relevance and informativeness of
the perceptual effects in relation to the task's goals, their
interest in the task and so on. In hindsight, this volatility is
consistent with the theoretical framework suggested by us
elsewhere (Karsh and Eitam 2015b) which specifies that
action-selection (eg, how and how much to respond)
depends on participants' current high-level cognitions of
which Delta- P is only a small and potentially not key
determinant.
The volatility of the effect of own-action effects on
response frequency is very different from the robustness of
the effect of (predictable and immediate) own action effects
on response time which also attests to the modular nature
of the mechanism producing them.
This current experiment aimed to alleviate a concern
raised by a previous reviewer of the paper3 that in
Experiment 3a participants were able to fully disambiguate
action-effects and inaction-effects using the auditory cues
they received; thus they could have disregarded the inaction
effects occurring on No-Response trials as irrelevant to
their behavior (although their timing was titrated, see
Experiment 2a), and that is allegedly, the reason inaction-
effects did not infuence response speed. Note that this
alternative explanation is not likely given that we observed
a similar pattern of response speed when using a free-
response task (Experiments 1 and 2a–2b) and a cued-
response task (Experiment 3a). Yet to alleviate this concern, experiment provided mixed results (we found the predicted difference in
we aimed to dissociate the auditory cues and action-effects,
hypothesizing that we would still fnd the pattern of results for response
3
We would like to thank Dr. Jan De-Houwer for raising this possibility.
1485
we found in previous studies, and the same (with less cer
tainty to the nosier measurement) for response frequency.4
Methods
Participants
Eighty-eight naïve students from the University of Haifa
were recruited. 67% of which were female, ages 19–34 (M
=24.21, SD=2.92). To circumvent issues of the sensitivity
of the data, our stopping rule for data collection was that all
hypotheses reach a conclusive BF10 (<0.33 or>3),
regardless of whether the pattern of results fts our
predictions or not. See pre-registration on the OSF project
for more details (Hemed et al. 2017). On Experiments 2a
and 2b (both also with a within-subject design), we found
an effect size of Cohen's d~0.35 for the RT contrast of
action-effects present, inaction-effects absent vs. Inaction
Effects absent. We did not conduct a priori power analysis,
but given the sample obtained using the Bayesian analysis
stopping rule, our sample had a posteriori statistical power
(1ÿÿ) of~0.95 to detect a similar effect.
task and design
As in Experiment 3a, we used Respond and Do not respond
auditory cues (here we used tones with the frequency of
440 and 1046 Hz to make them easily distinguishable). If a
participant responded before a randomly selected time
point, the trial was considered a response trial, and if they
did not—a no-response trial. The timepoints were sampled
from a random distribution, with the same parameters as in
Experiment 2b. Action-effects and inaction-effects were
independent of the auditory cues and depended solely on
the experimental condition. During the practice block, no
action-effects or inaction-effects were shown, and no
audition cues were played (ie, a trial included only the 850
ms response window and 700 ms ITI). The experiment had
a within-subject design, where the experimental conditions
4
It should be noted that we previously attempted to run this experiment
dissociating between tones and the result of actions and inactions (using
only the two conditions where action-effects are present, manipulated
between-subjects). However, due to a faw design the results of the
response frequency between the two conditions and a difference in RT
between the conditions). The faw was that we used the mean RT of previous
valid trialsspeed that for deeming trial as No-Response (see Experiment
as timepoint
2a) and as a result the partici pants were gradually pushed to respond
faster and faster as the time window shortened with their improved
performance, resulting in truncated distribution of RTs. The current design
bypasses this faw and is more like the Experiments presented in the current
study.
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1486
used in the study were manipulated in separate blocks and
in a random order, as in Experiments 2a–2b.
Procedure and apparatus
Participants first performed a practice block (32 trials),
during which they received feedback from the experimenter.
Then, they were familiarized with the Respond/Do not
respond tones and completed the four experimental
conditions in four separate experimental blocks, in a random
order (200 trials each, 50% Response-tone trials), as in
Experiments 2a–2b . The equipment used was identical to
Experiment 2b.
Results
Data pre-processing
Two participants were excluded before any pre-processing
as they failed to understand the instructions, requiring a 2nd
run of the practice block. No-Response trials (51.25% of raw
data) were not analyzed. We filtered out seven participants
(~8% of N=88), which were outliers (±2 SD) in response
frequency (two participants;~2.28%) or response speed (fve
participants; ~5.68). Out of the remaining subjects (92% of
raw data) we fltered incorrect trials (~ 2.63%), fast or slow
responses (0.02% and 0.03%; respectively). Filtration of
invalid Response-trials (both complete participants and
individual trials) resulted in the loss of 10.4% of the data.
data analysis
As in Experiments 2a–2b, we used paired samples t tests to
compare between the different conditions. First, we analyzed
the response time data (see Fig. 6A–C). As predicted, a two
way within-subject ANOVA revealed that action-effects had
a signifcant infuence on RT [F(1, 80)=49.07, p<0.0001,
Partial-ÿ2= 0.380], while inaction-effects did not [F (1,
80)=1.17, p=0.280, Partial-ÿ2=0.010] or the interaction [F(1,
80)=2.74, p=0.100, Partial-ÿ2=0.030]. We continued to
compare the action-effect present, inaction-effects absent
condition to all others. As predicted, we found that when
both action-effects and inaction-effects were present, RT
was not signifcantly different [Two-tail—t(80)=0.52, p=0.602,
Cohen's d=0.04, 95% CI (ÿ0.12 , 0.21), BF 1:0=0.14].
Also, as predicted we found that RT was slower when
action effects were absent, regardless of whether inaction-
effects were present [Upper-tail—t(80)=4.82, p <0.001,
Cohen's d=0.41, 95% CI (0.24 , 0.59), BF 1:0=4910.21], or
absent [Upper-tail—t(80)=6.32, p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.56,
95% CI (0.37, 0.74), BF 1:0=1,727,065.59 ].
Second, we analyzed the response frequency data (see
Fig. 6B–D). A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA
13
Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
found that action-effects significantly influenced RF [F(1, 80)
= 24.69, p < 0.0001, Partial-ÿ2 = 0.240], but inaction-effects
did not [F(1, 80) = 1.72, p = 0.190, Partial -ÿ2 = 0.020], with
a marginally significant interaction between the two [F(1, 80)
= 3.64, p = 0.060, Partial-ÿ2 = 0.040]. We continued to
compare all conditions to the baseline condition (action-
effects present, inaction-effects absent). In contrast to our
predictions, we did not find significantly lower response
frequency when both inaction-effects and action-effects were
present [Lower-tail—t(80) = ÿ 0.48, p = 0.318, Cohen's d = ÿ
0.06, 95 %CI (ÿ0.32, 0.19), BF 1:0 = 0.19]. As ever, we did
confirm our prediction that response frequency is higher on
the baseline condition (action-effects present, inaction-
effects absent) compared with the condition where only
inaction-effects are present [Lower tail—t(80) = ÿ 2.72, p =
0.004, Cohen's d = ÿ 0.35, 95% CI (ÿ 0.62, ÿ 0.09), BF 1:0 =
7.58] or when both action effects and inaction-effects are
absent [Lower-tail— t( 80 ) = ÿ 4.85, p < 0.001, Cohen's d =
ÿ 0.65, 95% CI (ÿ 0.93, ÿ 0.36), BF 1:0 = 5525.65].
General discussion
The past decade or so of study converged on the position
that SOA can be parsed as originating from conceptual or
from sensorimotor sources (Dewey and Knoblich 2014;
Moore 2016; Moore et al. 2009b; Synofzik et al. 2008; Wen
and Haggard 2020) .
The current study adds to this growing consensus by
disassociating between sensorimotor and conceptual SOA
based on their functional (input–output) behavior and their
down stream reinforcing effects. Specifically, conceptual
SOA is, among other infuences, also driven by a general-
purpose judgment of contingency (which we initially predicted
to follow the Delta-P rule, [P(E|R)—P(E|¬R)]) and reinforces
volitional action. The effect of this infuence was weak and
inconsistent in our experiments potentially because there is
more 'cognition' at play (and hence less experimental
control) in situations where no tangible rewards are to be
obtained (White 1959).
Conversely, sensorimotor SOA follows a simpler—
conditional probability—function P(E|R) and reinforces
response execution or the specifc motor program that is
credited with successfully predicting the effect; Empirically,
this effect is more robust compared to the effect of 'Delta-P'
on response frequency.
Crucially, modulation of RT was found to be fully
indifference to the presence or absence of inaction-effects,
as predicted. This supports the assumption that this
'evaluation' of agency is available only following a motor action (Wolpert
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
Fig. 6 Experiment 3b. Response speed increases with the presence of
action-effect but is insensitive to the presence or absence of inaction effects
(A–C). Response frequency, on the other hand, is facilitated by the presence
of action-effects, but is not affected by the presence of inaction-effects (with
a non-significant interaction; B and D). A and B Individual and group means
of response time (A) and response
et al. 1995). We plot a summary of the findings of the
current study in Fig. 7 below and continue by discussing the
theoretical implications of our findings, followed by several
caveats of the current study.
1487
frequency (B). Error bars indicate 95% CI of estimated marginal means.
Dashed lines indicate the grand average. C and D Bayesian Estimation of
the contrasts between the action-effects present, inaction-effects absent
condition and all other conditions. Horizontal lines indicate 95% HDI
Theoretical implications
Some of us (Karsh and Eitam 2015b) proposed the Control
Based-Response-Selection-Framework (abbreviated CBRS)
as a framework interpreting the fndings that SOA reinforces
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1488 Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497

Fig. 7 Forest plots of the study's findings. Response time (top row) is reinforced
by the presence of action-effects and insensitive to the presence or absence of
inaction-effects. In contrast, response frequency (bottom row) is weakly facilitated
by action-effects but also weakly reduced by the presence of inaction-effects.
The colored plus signs depict the Cohen's d effect size, the vertical line is the
effect
size reported on the results section for each of the contrasts per formed
between the 'baseline' experimental condition—action-effects present, inaction-
effects absent and each other experimental condition. The horizontal line is the
corresponding 95% CI. The black dot indicates the average effect size across
all experiments for this con
fret

effective actions as well as outlining the potential factors
modulating such reinforcement. The model is composed of
two levels, based on the different types of information they
'consume'. One level of the model is based on a general
purpose cognitive process (ie, cognition) that forms the
conceptual SOA—a causal judgment of action-outcome
contingency such as Delta-P or based on applying explicit
knowledge of the environment. This general purpose
process influences action-selection at the consciously
accessible, person-level (“Whether to act, or with which
effector”), here measured as response frequency. Our
working hypothesis is that this level may also be affected by the that
but only indirectly, potentially through interpreting sen
sations such as the fuency of responding (Chambon and
Haggard 2012; Synofzik et al. 2008; cf. Wen 2019). The
second level of the model is modular, and based on
sensorimotor processes and is unaffected by higher
cognitions such as beliefs, desires or causality judgments
(eg, ones of the form of Delta-P). This level uses a
'Comparator' (see introduction) that provides a sensorimotor
prediction of the consequences of (and only given) a motor response.
The function of this level is to evaluate the effectiveness of
a motor program by testing its ability to predict the effect of
motor-system
motor program on the environment–-utilizing the results

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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
of the sensorimotor predictions tested by the comparator.
Responses are reinforced relatively to the degree they led
to a confrmation of sensorimotor prediction/minimization of
sensory prediction error (SPE)—by crediting the spec cifc
motor-program that is related to the recent prediction of the
Comparator. Thus, the sensorimotor level reinforces actions
on a sub-person, consciously inaccessible level (here
measured as response latency). In other terms, the control
based-response-selection framework, argues that control
over the environment reinforces action selection and action
execution—based on a sensorimotor and non-sensorimotor
evaluation of the control an action has over the environment.
The current study provides direct support for the CBRS
framework. As described above—the sensorimotor level
SOA (but not the conceptual SOA) can modulate response
speed. Here we fnd that modulation is sensitive only to the
presence or absence of action-effects, P(E|R) and not to the
presence or absence of effects that occur when no motor
response was produced, P(E|¬R), which is what is predicted
if a comparator-like mechanism is involved.
As for modulation of action-selection (eg, whether to
respond), our current results are mixed. On one hand, we
did not fnd a strong infuence of Delta-P—a functional
description that successfully captured people's (and other
animals) judgment of contingency, including the special case
of cau sality, on response frequency. On the other hand, we
found that response frequency was inhibited by the presence
of inaction-effects (contra to response speed) and, to a lesser
degree, facilitated by action-effects (with no clear interaction
between the two).
The latter does not provide strong evidence that Delta-P
is the prominent computation used by participants in the
current study to select what to do or how much to do it which
is somewhat reasonable, given cases in which people some
times diverge from Delta- P even for causality judgments per
se (see Spellman 1996 for a review). It is not all that sur
prising that on the effect of the conceptual SOA on response
frequency is less robust, given that both people's judgments
are infuenced by a myriad of factors that might not be well
understood yet (Wen 2019) and are not under sufficient
experimental control and/or may vary between contexts. For
example, evidence from a different paradigm indicates that
low-level temporal delay could diminish response frequency
in general, potentially by affecting sensorimotor processes
(Karsh et al. 2021). However, it is not clear whether the SPE
related to the temporal delay reduced response frequency
directly or through conceptual SOA, and how it is weighted.
A second source of variability in response frequency is that
action selection (indexed here by response frequency) is
itself affected by more factors (in comparison to execution).
Hence, both the input (conceptual SOA) and output (action
selection) are 'noisier' and more multidetermined than sen
sorimotor processes and response execution.
1489
Indeed, our study fnds that response frequency, is most
certainly not infuenced only by a sensorimotor prediction.
Which is in striking contrast with response speed. This
peripheral effect of 'own-action effects' is also consistent
with CBRS which specifes that the selection of actions (ie,
volitional action) is infuenced by multiple inputs of which the
judgment of one's SOA of perceived changes is but one and
not necessarily the most important. Other, potentially more
infuential inputs may include abstract knowledge about the
situation (eg, task instructions), one's attitudes towards the
experimental situations, the inclination to explore the
environment, degree of engagement with the task or mere
perception of how one's performing on the task . As none of
the above (per CBRS) serve as inputs to the process
reinforcing the specifc motor program selected, they
contribute to the dissociation between measures that are
sensitive to only the modular elements of the motor-system
(as is RT in the current experimental context) and ones that
are less modular being related to higher cognitions such as
beliefs, etc.
Here we would also like to address a possible criti cism
of the current study. It was suggested by one of our reviewers
that mere information about performance, or response
accuracy, drives response frequency, rather than information
regarding control over the environment. There is no denying
that in the task used in this study information regarding
performance is confounded with information regarding control
—simply because participants are required to press the
correct key to receive action-effects.
As elaborated above, CBRS, our theoretical framework,
allows for information regarding expectations or perfor
mance to infuence action-selection via conceptual SOA.
While in theory, information about performance and spec
cifcally here, about response accuracy could have facilitated
response frequency, we fnd it unlikely that it did in the current
study, for the following reasons. First, by this interpretation
information about response accuracy should have been
positively correlated with response frequency. That is,
receiving feedback about being accurate should facilitate
further responses (ie increase response frequency). But in
the current study we find no consistent correlation between
accuracy (and hence, performance feedback) and frequency
of responding, undermining this hypothesis (see
supplementary materials section for the analyses). Second,
success in our task is composed of not one, but three factors
—responding using the correct key (accuracy), responding
prior to the end of the response window, and adhering to a
specified response frequency over the long run (eg,
responding on 50% of the trials).
Regarding the speed of a response and selecting the correct
key, feedback about performance is readily available—if
participants did not respond accurately or quickly enough,
they did not receive action-effects. information regarding
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1490
performance in terms of meeting the required response
frequency was given very sparsely (eg, every 200 trials
for experiments 2a–2b and 3-b). Although feedback on
response accuracy is readily available, as we write above
it was not correlated with response frequency, so again,
there is no basis to the claim that it infuenced response
frequency. Third, participants across all conditions
responded correctly to the cue—regardless of whether
they received feedback about their response frequency at
any point in time (ie, participants on the action-effect
absent groups, in experiments, 1 and 3a). Fourth, response poor ft for predicting extra-body effects (like the action-
frequency in the action-efect present, inaction-efect absent
condition was greater than on the action-efect present,
inaction efect present condition—although both received
identical feedback on their response accuracy (see
supplementary materials section for response accuracy
data) . Finally, in previous studies by our group (Karsh
and Eitam 2015a; Karsh et al. 2016) as well as others
(Penton et al. 2018) employed a free-choice version of the
task used here. In that version, participants are asked to
respond by selecting, in each trial, a key at random in
response to a general imperative cue. The typical pattern
is that participants tend to choose the key that is associated the original Comparator model), while the other uses
with the highest probability of leading to an action-effect,
at the expense of the other keys. This is in fact a
demonstration of response frequency being associated
with poorer performance on the task, as it signals deviation
from random responding (more strongly so as people's
perception of randomness is akin to probability matching; Bar-Hillel
In one of the above studies (Karsh and Eitam 2015a), no
association between participants' ratings of their intention
to cause an effect and their perceived success in
responding randomly (the task goal) was found. If
participants were to have mistakenly perceived the action-
effects as feedback on successfully random—a positive
correlation should have been detected, rather than no correlation
Note that all the above lies somewhat besides the key
point of the current study—which is that sensorimotor
information (here, the conditional probability of an effect
given a response) reinforces response speed, but other
types of information do not. Admittedly, the current study
can not completely rule out the possibility that information
regarding performance or response accuracy specifcally,
facilitated response frequency, regardless of how unlikely
we think this explanation is. Future studies could answer
this question using version of our task where information
regarding control and information on response accuracy
are dissociated, for example using one of the free-choice
variations of our task (cf. Karsh and Eitam 2015a), one
similar to the task we used here where incorrect responses reinforces the action that is judged to be causally effective.
also lead to action-effects, or by having the action effects
fully inform you about correctness but to some degree
uncontrolled (eg, spatially unpredictable).
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
predictions predictions
More broadly, the current study's findings are relevant for
a current debate on how does the mind integrate
information to make predictions about upcoming events
(Dogge et al. 2019; Press et al. 2020; Yon and Frith 2021).
Dogge et al. (2019) argued that while sensorimotor-based
internal models (eg, the comparator) are ft to make
predictions regarding bodily-sensations (eg, being tickled
vs. tick ling oneself; Blakemore et al. 2000), they are a
effects in our study). Specifically, they argue that in the
context of paradigms used to study the infuence of action-
effects on perception (like sensory attenuation or intentional
binding), sensorimotor mechanisms provide a poor
explanation as there is evidence that effects that are
considered to be implicit measures of agency, such as
intentional binding are sensitive to top-down influences like
beliefs and explicit knowledge (see also the Introduction
section above). As an alternative they proposed a hybrid
internal model (ie, comparator) with two alternative routes
—one uses an eference copy (a 'forward model' similar to
conceptual information such as beliefs and causal reasoning.
Both models can make predictions regarding the perceived
effect of an action, but they are used in different
circumstances stances. The lower-level process is used
for overlearned and body-related effects (eg, sense of
beingand Wagenaar
tickled), 1991)
while the .
higher-level process is used in
novel contexts and events that are related to the
environment (and possibly less with own- actions). Their
model does not impose rigid constraints on whether the
low- or high-level pro cesses can be used for a specifc
prediction, only indicates what might be the general
function of each process. This model does share some similarity with C
CBRSat all.
highlights the impact of the prediction process on
further action-selection and (b) in CBRS the two levels
can share some information but make qualitatively different
predictions, regardless of whether a specifc contingency
is overlearned or novel (see our work on rapid updating of
action's effectiveness in dynamic environments by what
seems to be the low-level process; Hemed et al. 2020).
The current study moves this discussion forward by
dissociating between (a) the simultaneous operation of a
purely (modular) sensorimotor forward model-based
prediction diction and (b) a general-domain process like
causality judgments. While the former (ie, the Comparator)
rein forces motor programming when a sensorimotor
prediction is confrmed, (cf. Tanaka et al. 2021) the latter
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
Predictions postdictions
The focus of CBRS is on the dissociation between the sense
rimotor and conceptual types of SOA. However, there are
other ways to parse SOA, for example, by considering pro
cesses that incorporate only prediction and ones that consider
both prediction and 'postdiction', sometimes termed
retrospective and prospective SOA, respectively (Chambon
and Haggard 2013) .
The utility of this dissociation can be demonstrated by
considering an intentional binding study (Moore et al. 2009a).
Moore and colleagues manipulated the probability of receiving
action- and inaction-effects (ie, Delta-P). They found out that
a high probability for action-effects led to intentional binding
effects regardless of Delta-P and even on trials in which no
effect followed the action. Conversely, when the conditional
probability of action-effects was low, intentional binding was
found only following action-effects and only if Delta-P was
positive. The authors concluded that probability of action-
effects and Delta-P may be used by two different processes
to evaluate effectiveness, similarly to our point in this work.
Crucially though, they argue that the mechanism that is
sensitive only to the action-effect probability is a sensorimotor
predictive process, (ie, the Comparator) that induces
'prospective' SOA. On the other hand, Delta-P was attributed
to a conceptual, 'postdictive' process, ie, causal inference, as
it occurred only following action-effects and was dependent
on Delta-P.
While our findings relate to the dissociation found by Moore
et al.'s (2009a), they offer a different perspective on the
parsing of prospective and retrospective agency.
First, Moore et al., used a measure of intentional binding
as a proxy for SOA, a measure that includes a deliberate
estimation of the time that elapsed between two events,
usually an own-action and a candidate action-effect.
Importantly, the measure is de-facto retrospective and has
been shown to be also affected by 'cognitions' about the
situation (Desantis et al. 2011).
Second, as others have stated (Gozli 2019; cf. Gozli and
Dolcini 2018), associating sensorimotor processes with
prospective SOA and conceptual processes with retrospective
SOA maybe misguided as both involve both prediction and
postdiction. Our proposal here is that motor programs are
reinforced postdictively by a modular sensorimotor process.
Elsewhere, we have shown that sensorimotor SOA as
measured by facilitation of reaction times is also highly
sensitive to the factors regarding prediction (eg, precision;
Hemed et al. 2020).
Relatedly, Gozli and Dolcini (2018) and Gozli and Gao
(2019) also suggested how the reinforcement of action (and
specifcally exploration) can result from loss of control over
the environment, in the context of hedonic stimuli (Gozli and
Dolcini 2018; Gozli and Gao 2019). While there seems to be
1491
some hedonic attribute to control (and its loss; see
introduction), it is not yet clear what level of action-selection
this applies to. Our previous findings (Hemed et al. 2020)
have shown that loss of control inhibits action rather than
facilitates it, at least when the sensorimotor SOA is concerned
(measured by RT). Regarding the conceptual SOA, the
simple answer is that we are not sure. The current study was
not designed to answer how dynamically degrading action-
out as contingency would infuence response frequency (we
review below a study by Penton et al. 2010that did test such
dynamically changing contingencies). We speculate that it
would reduce response frequency, as we found that lack of
action-effects inhibits response frequency. Still, it could be
that a dynamic change in action-outcome contingency similar
to what Gozli and Gao (2019) suggest would reinforce actions
through other mechanisms that are not related to CBRS (eg,
explicit decision for exploration; Watanabe and Taga 2009;
Zaadnoordijk et al. 2018).
Subjective reports of SOA
A final note refers to the current study's results regarding
people's self-reported SOA. We do not present these findings
in full here (but see Supplementary Materials) as the
experimental designs in the current study were geared to
dissociate between the infuence of factors shown to be
associated with the infuence of the two 'types' of SOA on
behavioral meas ures rather than to sensitively measure
people's judgment of agency (conceptual SOA). More
specifically, three of the fve experiments in the current study
used a within-subject design and regardless of the design,
subjective reports were always collected only at the end of
each experiment rather than during the experimental blocks.
Notwithstanding this caveat, it is interesting to note that
participants' subjective reports were not strongly associated
with Delta-P. Generally, participants in conditions where
action-effects were present reported similar levels of feeling
of control over the environment regardless of the presence of inaction-effec
This leads to the question of whether the causal judgment or
'regularity detection' mechanism suggested by Wen and
Haggard (2020) is different from a subjective judgment of
agency. Importantly, two recent studies show that response
frequency, Delta-P and causality judgments are correlated, at
least in the context of obtaining desired outcomes. Both
studies used a free-operant task with varying probabilities of
action- and inaction-effects signaling monetary gains,
(O'Callaghan et al. 2019; Vaghi et al. 2019).
As an interim conclusion, we speculate that in the context
of tangible outcomes (vs. value-free, action-effects) response
frequency could follow a different computation, one where
response frequency is scaled by contingency and reward
outcome. Another possible explanation for this discrepancy
may be found in a recent study by Yon et al. (2020). In the
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1492
study, the conceptual component of agency was quantified
using several approaches, including signal detection, it was
found- that explicit judgments of agency are biased upward
(“I am in control”), due to overweighting of action-effect
occurrences (differently from the unbiased description of
causality suggested by Delta-P; Wasserman et al. 1983, but
see Spellman 1996). Yet a third possibility for the discrepancy
between previous and current findings on the relation ship
between Delta-P and people's deliberate judgments of
agency is that the link between the conceptual SOA and
behavior is itself context-specific (Tapal et al. 2017). This
may indeed be the case as humans tend to repeat the most
effective actions (in the neutral sense of merely infuencing
the environment) when exploring a novel environment, but
may not tend to do so when they have a clear goal or an
urgent need that requires fulfillment—when actions that are
most conducive to the goal/need are selected (Nafcha et al.
2016; White 1959). We contrast this with the fxed or
decontextualized relationship between behavior and rein
forcement from a mere sensorimotor prediction error (ie, the
sensorimotor SOA). The lack of sensitivity to the context of
the latter form of reinforcement is also seemingly due to its
modular nature and specifically, its lack of conceptual input
(see Heald et al. 2021).
Actions and inactions
One caveat that we would like to note regarding the current
work, relates to an assumption we make regarding the
rimotor sense SOA. Our predictions are premised on the
assumption that the sensorimotor evaluation of an action's effective
ness relies on an eference copy, hence action-effects are
meaningful to the sensorimotor SOA and inaction-effects are
meaningless. However, some might say that this is a
problematic assumption as there is evidence that there is an
eference copy even for planned or imagined actions. Below
we discuss other findings, from studies using experimental
tasks and measures which are both similar and different than ours.with our theoretical proposal.
For additional theoretical and empirical comparisons other
than the ones discussed below, please refer to the extended
general discussion section in the supplemental materials.
First, Penton and colleagues (Penton et al. 2018), tested
the influence of action-effects and inaction-effects on
response time and frequency, using a variant of our free
choice task (Karsh and Eitam 2015a). On each trial, their
participants were asked to decide whether to respond or not,
and if they did respond, they were asked to select a key at
random, out of four keys that were associated with different
action-effect probabilities (0, 0.3, 0.6 or 0.9). On different
blocks, the probability of inaction-effects was either 0, 0.3,
0.6, or 0.9, each identified by a differently colored frame
shown on the screen. Penton et al., found that response
frequency was modified by both action-effects and
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
inaction-effects, and somewhat in line with our findings, that
response frequency is weakly facilitated by action-effects
and is more strongly inhibited by inaction-effects. However,
they also found that response speed was influenced by the
conditional probability of action-effects only when there was
a low probability of inaction-effects, while we repeatedly
found that response speed was influenced strictly by the
presence or absence of action-effects , regardless of the
presence or absence of inaction-effects. The findings by
Penton and colleagues (Penton et al. 2018) regarding
response frequency fit the CBRS framework's predictions—
the conceptual evaluation of effectiveness considers
information both from own-action effects and externally
generated effects. How ever, their data on response speed
are different than ours (and, more importantly, conficts theoretically).
One possibility for the source of the apparent discrepancy
in results is that in Penton et al.'s study participants prepared
their responses in advance and withheld them after planning
their response. Unlike some of the previous studies using
the task, there was no attentional probe, so participants were
always required to use only a specific set of responses (cf.
Karsh and Eitam 2015a; Hemed et al. 2020).
In our study, it was impossible for participants to prepare a
response in advance and then decide not to execute it, as a
specific response was required per cue. However, in Penton
et al.'s study participants were asked to first select at random
whether to respond or forgo the trial, and then select at
random a key to respond with. Studies involving the
measurement of scalp potentials (EEG), and specifcally a
specific evoked response potential (ERP) that has been
shown to refect the selection of a response (ie, which hand
to respond with), the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP)
in the context of stop-signal tasks showed LRP's even when
responses were withheld (Huster et al. 2013; Li et al. 2008).
If this was indeed the case in Penton and colleagues' study
an eference copy could have been generated even if the
action was not eventually executed. This would be consistent
Another possibility is that Penton and colleagues detected
the infuence of inaction-effects on response speed due to
the comparative ease of their task—on response-trials, par
participants were required to respond with any random key
out of the response set. Because they did not need to attend
any spatial cue as in the current study, their participants had
ample cognitive resources to evaluate the action-outcome
contingency of each block. Again, by this account, therefore
the knowledge of these probabilities infuenced response
speed in their study and not in ours—simply because as it
was not available to our participants, which were cognitively
taxed due to the cued-response task. This explanation is
hard to accept as responding randomly is arguably a more
difficult task than cued responding (it is sometimes used as
a manipulation of mental load) as one needs to hold and
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497 1493

update at least a partial tally of the different responses she of the experiment's conditions, it was found that responding
emitted. This alternative explanation can also be rejected with the previously associated, efect-compatible response
empirically as accuracy in our task was almost always was faster than responding with the efect-incompatible one.
above 90% (see supplementary materials), and participants' This is brought as empirical evidence for the hallmark of
mean response speeds were around half of the duration of ideomotor—a bidirectional sensorimotor association. This
the response window, showing that the task was quite easy congruence effect was found both when the conditional
for them. Thus, it is very unlikely that if we would have used probability of action-effect was high, but inaction-effects
a free-choice paradigm like Penton et al.'s, we would have were absent (Delta-P=0.6) and when the conditional
allowed our participants more cognitive resources, enabling probability of both action-effects and inaction-effects were
them to evaluate the inaction-effect probability and bias equally high (0.8; Delta-P=0). However, when the probability
their response speed. of action-effects was only slightly higher compared with that
Finally, another difference between the two studies that of inaction-effects (it was 0.80 and 0.50, respectively, ie,
could potentially explain the difference in results is the Delta-P=0.3), no facilitation of response speed was found.
existence of contextual cues. In Penton et al.'s, a colored Similarly, when the conditional probability of action-effects
frame surrounding the experimental window, uniquely was 0.5 or lower (and Delta-P was 0.0) no response speed
identified the probability of inaction-effects. Hypothetically, facilitation on association-compatible blocks was found.
subjects could have learned the mapping between colors The authors suggested that sensorimotor associations are
and probability values (there were only four colors and four acquired through two modes—Delta-P being positive and
probability values, see above) and could have used this high (ie, when inaction-effects were absent) or when Delta
information to predict when an inaction-effect is likely. If this P is naught but the probability for both action-effects and
sort of prediction infuenced their response speed, this inaction-effects is high.
comes as evidence against our point that response speed These findings are not fully compatible with our claim,
in our task is mostly sensitive to sensorimotor processes given the null findings that no sensorimotor associations
and that if our participants were only aware of the probability were formed when action-efect probability was high and
of inaction efects our pattern of results would have changed inaction-effect probability was moderate (ie, Delta-P=0.3).
(eg, slower RTs for the action-effect present, inaction-effect The most similar counterpart for this situation in our study
present condition). However, we believe that this explanation is the present action-effect, inaction-effect present condition
for the differences between the studies can also be rejected. in Experiment 1 (as they had a p=1 probability for action-
Contrary to the dynamically changing contingencies in effect given an action, and a p=0.8 probability for inaction-
Penton et al.'s study in our study the contingencies either effects given no-action). Which yields a slightly positive
did not change throughout the experiment (Experiments 1 value of Delta-P (with high frequency of action and inaction-
and 3a) or changed on separate (long) blocks, once every effects). The results in Experiment 1 are similar to those
200 trials (Experiments 2a– 2b and 3b). Both cases gave found on other experiments for this condition, although on
participants ample opportunity to consciously evaluate the Experiments 2–3 the conditional probability for both action-
action-effect and inaction-effect conditional probabilities. effects and inaction-effects is 1, making Delta-P exactly 0.
Although there are multiple procedural differences One could argue further that our results for the action-efect
between our study and Penton and colleagues', we suspect present, inaction-efect present stem from the high frequency
that the main reason for the ostensive differences between of action-efects and inaction-efects, as Els ner and Hommel
the results stems from the difference in sizes of the samples. found that high frequency of action- and inaction-efects can
The current study reports that data from more than 300 par drive sensorimotor associations when Delta -P is 0.
participants across several replications while Penton and
col leagues' results refect a single study with a ffth of our As in the current study we included only two conditions
total sample size. Thus, further studies are required to settlewhere Delta-P was 0, the action-effect present, inaction
the apparent discrepancy between the two studies, due to effect present and action-effect absent, inaction-effect
the relative similarity between the two tasks. absent. Exploring several other conditions where Delta-P is
Another study that is relevant to the current study's 0 (eg, like one where both action-effective probability and
findings is Elsner and Hommel (2004; Experiment 2). Elsner inaction-effect probability are 0.3) could have answered the
and Hommel used a Go/No-Go bidirectional association question of whether the facilitation we observed for response
acquisition task where participants frst learned action- and speed on the action-effect present, inaction-efect present
inaction-effect pairings between specifc keys and tones. In occurred from sheer frequency of feedback, as Elsner and
the next phase, the tones served as response-cues, and Hommel's study suggests or from high action-efect prob
participants were asked to respond either with the previously ability as we argue. If indeed sheer frequency or Delta-P
associated response, or with the alternative response. in some alone can drive sensorimotor processes, then our claim that

13
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1494
sensorimotor SOA relies on action-effect probability alone
will be undermined.
Although we have shown that facilitation in response
speed, which we attribute to sensorimotor processes alone,
followed action-effects presence and was indifferent to the
presence or absence of inaction-effects one thing has to be
considered in terms of the relevance of the results, which is
a difference in the methods used on the two studies. While
Elsner and Hommel used an action-effect contingency
learning phase on the 'test' phase, there were no action-
effects and inaction-effects present. Thus, their manipulation
for testing the infuence of previously acquired sensorimotor
associations was whether compatibility effects are found
when action- and inaction-effects are removed. In a previous
study we have shown that removing action-effects was
immedi ately (ie, trial by trail) deleterious to response speed,
let alone a long experimental block (Hemed et al. 2020 ). As
the 'test' phase in Elsner and Hommel's study spanned many
minutes and trials—this begs the question of how can the
same sensorimotor process be responsible for both our fnd
ings and theirs, when on one setting it is immune to
extinction, and on the other it is highly sensitive to extinctions.
We find that the difference in sensitivity to extinction
potentially undermines the applicability of their finding to our
study, as it suggests that different mental processes are
probed by the two studies.
On a more general note, regarding the task used by
Elsner and Hommel (2004). As elaborated above, this para
digm involves an extensive acquisition and test phase. A
'learning' phase which is then followed by a 'test' phase. In
a recent paper, Sun and colleagues (In press), show that
Elsner and Hommel's effects can in fact be created and
explained by what they term 'propositions' to mean explicit
(conscious) causal inferences. That is, the results used by
Elsner and Hommel, that are argued to be evidence for the
automatic creation and/or application of passively acquired
associations can also be explained by people's explicit and
conscious understanding of action-effect relations. These
findings set Elsner and Hommel's study (and paradigm)
further apart than the current study and especially lowers
the relevance of their results to the modular sensorimotor
processes that we hypothesize underly the facilitation of
response speed on our study. The findings by Sun and col
leagues, however, are fully compatible with our key argument
that the effect of bona-fde sensorimotor processes on
behavior is insensitive to inaction-effects (Sunet al. 2020).
Other studies have used different behavioral measures of
sensorimotor and conceptual SOA, and found results which
only partially match ours. In a recent study, Weller et al.
(2020) have shown that both explicit judgment of agency
and intentional binding are increased when participants
receive inaction-effects, although to a lesser extent compared
with actions lead to effects. Interestingly, Weller et al.
13
Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497
(2020) also found that subjective agency reports were
infuenced by inaction-effects, similarly to our response
frequency measure, which we believe to refect a conceptual
SOA more akin to a subjective agency report (but see above).
While it could be that our task was less sensitive, than theirs
in measuring response speed it does not seem likely given
we have found robust evidence for the lack of difference in
response speed for the action-effect present conditions (by
recording the rather minute facilitation of response speed
observed in both conditions), regardless of the presence or
absence of inaction-effects. Finally, it is important to note
that it is not at all clear whether intentional binding stems
from a Comparator-like process (Suzuki et al. 2019) , so the
comparison between our results and Weller et al.'s may be
not very informative .
Another interesting finding comes from a study which
used, sensory attenuation as a measure of 'implicit SOA'
(Kilteni et al. 2018). In the study, a small motor applied
pressure to a participants' arm who were asked to match the
reference force by either pressing down on a button imaging
or pressing it down (while their muscle activity was monitored
to make sure that they only imagined the action ).
Immediately after, they were asked to reproduce the force
applied to their arm by pressing down on a force sensor.
In both action and imagined-action conditions participants
showed sensory attenuation—the reproduced pressure that
should have refected the reference pressure they received
was lower compared to a baseline condition, where partici
pants did not press the button nor imagined pressing it. The
authors argued that the engine planning during imagery was
enough to provide an eference copy that arguably was fed
to the comparator, yielding attenuation. It is important to
remember that in our task participants were not asked to
imagine the no-action to the imperative cue, and that Kilteni
et al., gave their participants substantial motor-imagery
training prior to testing, so it can be argued that our partici
pants simply did not imagine the movement as their partici
pants did. A future study could potentially test our claims by
recording the LRP in response to the cue and see whether
participants did or did not imagine the actions spontaneously
on inaction-trials. Also, explicitly asking our participants to
imagine the actions on no-action trials could be an interest
ing control condition to our task.
Conclusion
We have shown that a response's effectiveness can be
evaluated simultaneously by at least two different processes
(at the least, as additional ones may be discovered) as
proposed in the Control-Based Response Selection
Framework (CBRS; Karsh and Eitam 2015b) and partially
supported by a recent study (Wen and Haggard 2020). One
such evaluation is based on sensorimotor-prediction and culminates in wh
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Experimental Brain Research (2022) 240:1471–1497 1495

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Acknowledgments We would like to thank Prof. Jan De Houwer for his

insights on previous versions of the manuscript. We would like to thank
Rotem Ellenbogen and Shiran Sharabi (Tel-Hai College) for their help in
running Experiment 1, Lilach Yona, Amier Kardosh and Rivka Aviv
(University of Haifa, Israel) for their help in running Experiments 2 through
4.
Author contributions EH, NK and BE developed the study concept.
All authors contributed to the experiments' design. EH, BE, NK, ITM,
performed data analysis. EH and BE wrote the paper; the others with
minded and contributed to revisions. BE Supervised the study.
Funding This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation
(ISF) grant number 339/16 and The Bi-national Science Foundation (BSF)
grant number 2016/299 to BE
Data availability The datasets analyzed during the current study are
available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability The code used in current study is available from the
corresponding author on reasonable request.
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