abstract Florian Waszak

Florian Waszak (Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, France)

Neurophysiological and functional mechanisms of human voluntary action control: A predictive coding account of action effect anticipation.

Humans carry out actions either in response to environmental demands, or independently of external input in order to achieve their goals. The first type of action may be referred to as stimulus-based or reactive, the latter kind may be referred to as intention-based or voluntary. Research on human action has only relatively recently begun to try to understand the control of voluntary actions, focusing instead on action that is performed in response to a stimulus in the environment. I will present a series of studies investigating the functional and neurophysiological underpinnings of voluntary actions. In particular, I will present experiments on how the cognitive system anticipates an action's sensory consequences in the environment, as well as a study investigating the temporal dynamics of effect anticipation. Finally, I will outline a predictive coding model that is capable of explaining how action effect anticipation influences perception (e.g., sensory attenuation).