The time course of Temporal Binding in social and nonsocial interactions.

Temporal Binding (TB) is the subjective compression of action-effect intervals. While the effects of nonsocial actions are highly predictable, it is not the case when interacting with conspecifics, who often act under their own volition, at a time of their choosing. Given the relative differences in action-effect predictability in non-social and social interactions, it is plausible that TB and its properties differ across these situations. To examine this, in two experiments, we compared the time course of TB in social and nonsocial interactions, systematically varying action-effect intervals (200-2,100 ms). Participants were told they were (a) interacting with another person via a live webcam, who was in fact a confederate (social condition), (b) interacting with pre-recorded videos (nonsocial condition), or (c) observing two pre-recorded videos (control condition; Experiment 2). Results across experiments showed greater TB for social compared to nonsocial conditions, and the difference was proportional to the action-effect intervals. Further, in Experiment 1, TB was consistently observed throughout the experiment for social interactions, whereas nonsocial TB decreased from the first to the second half of the experiment. In Experiment 2, the nonsocial condition did not differ from control, whereas the social condition did, exhibiting enhanced binding. We argue these results suggest that the sociality of an interaction modulates the 'internal clock' of time perception.

Social Agency as a continuum.

Sense of Agency, the phenomenology associated with causing one's own actions and corresponding effects, is a cornerstone of human experience. Social Agency can be defined as the Sense of Agency experienced in any situation in which the effects of our actions are related to a conspecific. This can be implemented as the other's reactions being caused by our action, joint action modulating our Sense of Agency, or the other's mere social presence influencing our Sense of Agency. It is currently an open question how such Social Agency can be conceptualized and how it relates to its nonsocial variant. This is because, compared with nonsocial Sense of Agency, the concept of Social Agency has remained oversimplified and underresearched, with disparate empirical paradigms yielding divergent results. Reviewing the empirical evidence and the commonalities and differences between different instantiations of Social Agency, we propose that Social Agency can be conceptualized as a continuum, in which the degree of cooperation is the key dimension that determines our Sense of Agency, and how it relates to nonsocial Sense of Agency. Taking this perspective, we review how the different factors that typically influence Sense of Agency affect Social Agency, and in the process highlight outstanding empirical questions within the field. Finally, concepts from wider research areas are discussed in relation to the ecological validity of Social Agency paradigms, and we provide recommendations for future methodology.