Measurement of the Perception of Control during Continuous Movement using Electroencephalography

“Sense of control” refers to the subjective feeling of control over external events. Numerous neuropsychological studies have investigated the neural basis of the sense of control during action performance; however, most previous studies have focused on responses to a single discrete action outcome rather than real-time processing of action-outcome sequences. In the present study, we aimed to identify whether certain patterns of brain activation are associated with the perceived control during continuous movement. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) signals while participants continuously moved a right-handed mouse in an attempt to control multiple visual stimuli. When participants perceived a sense of control over the stimuli, we observed a positive potential approximately 550 ms after the onset of movement, while no similar potential was observed when participants reported a lack of control. The appearance of this potential was consistent with the time window of awareness of control in a behavioral test using the same task, and likely reflected the explicit allocation of attention to control. Moreover, we found that the alpha-mu rhythm, which is linked to sensorimotor processing, was significantly suppressed after participants came to a conclusion regarding the level of control, regardless of whether control or lack of control was perceived. In summary, our results suggest that the late positive potential after the onset of the movement and the suppression of alpha-mu rhythm can be used as markers of the perception of control during continuous action performance and feedback monitoring.