Available online at [Link].

com

Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

[Link]/locate/COGNIT

The phenomenology of action: A

conceptual framework q
Elisabeth Pacherie *

Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, Département d’Etudes Cognitives,

Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

Received 31 July 2006; revised 3 September 2007; accepted 14 September 2007

Abstract

After a long period of neglect, the phenomenology of action has recently regained its place
in the agenda of philosophers and scientists alike. The recent explosion of interest in the topic
highlights its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework
allowing for a more precise characterization of the many facets of the phenomenology of
agency, of how they are related and of their possible sources. The key assumption guiding this
attempt is that the processes through which the phenomenology of action is generated and the
processes involved in the specification and control of action are strongly interconnected. I
argue in favor of a three-tiered dynamic model of intention, link it to an expanded version
of the internal model theory of action control and specification, and use this theoretical frame-
work to guide an analysis of the contents, possible sources and temporal course of comple-
mentary aspects of the phenomenology of action.
Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

q
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at a workshop on the tempo of consciousness at
Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in May 2005, at the Colloquium of the Institute of Cognitive Science in
Lyons in January 2006 and at the Perception and Action Symposium held at Cornell University in May
2006. I am grateful to the many people who participated in the discussions in these occasions. I also thank
Tim Bayne, Patrick Haggard, Joshua Knobe, Susanna Siegel, and Frédérique de Vignemont for comments
on earlier drafts and three anonymous referees for this journal for many helpful comments and
suggestions.
*
Tel.: +33 1 44 32 26 81; fax: +33 1 44 32 26 86.
E-mail address: pacherie@[Link]

0010-0277/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/[Link].2007.09.003
180 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

Keywords: Action specification mechanisms; Consciousness of action; Sense of agency; Sense of control;
Intention

1. Introduction

Given its central role in everyday experience, it is surprising that the phenomenol-
ogy of action received until very recently such scant attention from action theorists
and theorists of consciousness. Things are starting to change, however. In particular,
improving psychological and neuroscientific methods have recently made the phe-
nomenology of action an object of empirical investigation. One of the earlier pio-
neers was certainly Libet, whose famous studies on the ‘readiness potential’ were
interpreted by many, including Libet himself, as evidence in favor of a skeptical atti-
tude towards conscious mental causation. More recently, Wegner’s psychological
experiments and his claim that the conscious will is an illusion also promoted what
Bayne and Levy (2006) aptly call ‘will-skepticism’. These attacks on the traditional
view of the structure of agency and the role the experience of agency plays within
this structure did much to reawaken the interest of philosophers in the phenomenol-
ogy of action. At the same time, further empirical investigations aimed at probing in
more detail the phenomenology of action and its disorders have started yielding a
wealth of new data, suggesting that will-skepticism may rest in part on too simplistic
a view of the phenomenology of agency.
This burgeoning literature on the content and sources of the phenomenology of
action highlights its many facets. A non-exhaustive list of proposed distinctions
includes awareness of a goal, awareness of an intention to act, awareness of initiation
of action, awareness of movements, sense of activity, sense of mental effort, sense of
physical effort, sense of control, experience of authorship, experience of intentional-
ity, experience of purposiveness, experience of freedom, and experience of mental
causation. Beyond this terminological profusion, it remains unclear how these vari-
ous aspects of the phenomenology of action are related, to what extent they are dis-
sociable, and whether some are more basic than others. It also remains unclear what
their sources are and how exactly they relate to action specification and action con-
trol mechanisms.
The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework allowing for a
more precise characterization of the many facets of the phenomenology of action,
of their relations to one another, and of their possible sources. One key assumption
guiding this attempt is that the processes through which the component elements of
the phenomenology of action are generated and the processes involved in the spec-
ification and control of action are strongly interconnected. In Section 2, I describe
and motivate a dynamic model of intentions and action specification. In Section 3,
I discuss in more detail the connections between this conceptual model and the inter-
nal model approach to action specification and control. I hope to show that the
dynamic theory of intentions I propose provides a framework for thinking about
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 181

action that is both conceptually and empirically motivated. In Section 4, I provide a

preliminary regimentation of the various components of the phenomenology of
action. Sections 5 and 6 explore the extent to which these components may correlate
with and possibly have their source in different aspects and stages of the processes of
action specification and control. Section 5 focuses on our awareness of the content of
our actions, i.e., our awareness of their goals and of the means employed to achieve
these goals, while Section 6 focuses on the sense of agency for an action, i.e., the
sense an agent has that he or she is the author of this action, and on the component
experiences that contribute to the sense of agency.

2. A dynamic theory of intentions

The causal theory of action is the view that behavior qualifies as action just in case
it has a certain sort of psychological cause or involves a certain sort of psychological
causal process. In the last decades, this approach has gained wide currency. Yet, ver-
sions of causalism can take widely different forms depending on (1) what they take
the elements of the action-relevant causal sequence to be and (2) what part of the
sequence they identify as the action. With respect to (1), many philosophers have
argued that in order to overcome some of the difficulties and shortcomings that pla-
gued early belief/desire versions of the causal theory of actions, intentions – con-
ceived as distinctive, sui generis, mental states with their own complex and
proprietary functional roles – should be viewed as crucial elements of the action-rel-
evant causal sequence. With respect to (2), several philosophers have also argued
that actions should not be identified with mere bodily movements but with a larger
chunk of the causal sequence. The dynamic theory of intentions proposed here
shares both these insights.
Some of the functions attributed to intentions are typically played in the period
between the initial formation of the intention and the initiation of the action. In con-
trast, other functions – in particular, their role in guiding and monitoring the action
– are played in the period between the initiation of the action and its completion.
Attention to these differences has led a number of philosophers to develop dual-
intention theories of action. For instance, Searle (1983) distinguishes between prior
intentions and intentions-in-action, Bratman (1987) between future-directed and
present-directed intentions, Brand (1984) between prospective and immediate inten-
tions, and Mele (1992) between distal and proximal intentions.1
Two, often implicit, assumptions of these dual-intention theories are problematic.
First, they tend to assume that the role of the first of these two intentions is over once
the second is in place. Their second, related, assumption is that action guidance and
monitoring are the sole responsibility of the second intention. In contrast, I shall
argue that we should distinguish three main stages in the process of action specifica-

1
For a more detailed analysis of the difficulties and shortcomings of the belief/desire versions of CTA
and for an evaluation of some of the proposals made by dual-intention theorists (see Pacherie, 2000, 2003,
2006).
182 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

tion, each corresponding to a different level of intention and each level of intention
having a distinctive role to play in the guidance and monitoring of the action.
In the remainder of this section, I will therefore try and motivate a threefold dis-
tinction among intentions: distal intentions, proximal intentions, and motor inten-
tions (D-intentions, P-intentions, and M-intentions for short).2 This threefold
distinction is based on an analysis of their different and complementary functional
roles, of the different types of contents they involve and of their respective temporal
scales. It is also informed by recent neuroscientific results. I will offer a characteriza-
tion of the dynamics involved in the unfolding of intentions. Two levels of dynamics
should be considered: the local dynamics specific to each level of intention and the
global dynamics involved in the transitions from one level of intention to the next.
With respect to the global dynamics of intentions, I shall argue that these transitions
involve the construction of progressively more detailed representations of the action
to be performed. Many aspects of the action that are initially left indeterminate are
specified at the level of the P-intention and get further specified at the level of the M-
intention. With respect to the local dynamics, it is also useful to distinguish, for
intentions at each level, two phases of their internal dynamics: the upstream dynam-
ics that culminate in the formation of the intention and the downstream dynamics
manifested once the intention has been formed.

2.1. Distal intentions (D-intentions)

My notion of D-intentions is very close in certain respects to Bratman’s notion of

future-directed intentions (Bratman, 1987) Following his lead, we may stress three
functions of D-intentions: as terminators of practical reasoning about ends, prompt-
ers of practical reasoning about means and plans, and intra- and interpersonal coor-
dinators. The upstream dynamics of D-intentions – the dynamics of decision-making
that lead to the formation of an intention – can be seen as involving two stages. The
first stage is associated with the first of these three functions and involves deciding
which end to pursue. The second stage in the upstream dynamics of D-intentions
is linked to their functions as prompters of practical reasoning about means and
as intra- and interpersonal coordinators. This reasoning must be internally, exter-
nally, and globally consistent. The various elements that form the building blocks
of an action plan must be mutually consistent (internal consistency). The plan as a
whole should be consistent with the agent’s beliefs about the world (external consis-
tency). Finally the plan must take into account the wider framework of activities and
projects in which the agent is also involved and be coordinated with them in a more
global plan (global consistency).
It is important to note that the distinction between the two stages in the upstream
dynamics of intentions does not amount to a complete separation of the two pro-

2
I have chosen to borrow Mele’s terminology instead of those used by Bratman, Searle or Brand, as less
likely to mislead one into thinking that the difference between distal and proximal actions is essentially or
solely one of time and that distal intentions play no role in the guidance and control of actions once
started.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 183

cesses. Choosing among alternative ends is not just a matter of assessing and weight-
ing their respective desirability; considerations of feasibility also play a role. A highly
desirable end we have no means to attain or think we are highly unlikely to achieve
may well be discarded in favor of a less desirable but more accessible goal. Yet typ-
ically, if a goal appears feasible, one can settle for it before engaging in a phase of
detailed practical reasoning about the means to be employed to achieve it.
The upstream dynamics of D-intentions, although not completely context-free,
are not strongly dependent on the particular situation in which the agent finds him-
self when he forms the D-intention or reasons from it. I can form a D-intention to
act an hour from now, next week, two years from now or once I retire from work.
This temporal flexibility makes it possible for an agent to form a D-intention to per-
form an action of a given type even though his present situation is not such as to
allow its immediate performance. A D-intention is therefore in principle detachable
from the agent’s current situation and is indeed commonly detached from it. To that
extent, its content is at least in part conceptual and descriptive. Of course, the current
situation may sometimes prompt the formation of D-intentions, in which case, the
content of the D-intention may involve indexical elements. Suppose someone kindly
puts a plate of chocolate cake on my desk, I may well form the D-intention to eat this
cake as soon as I finish writing this section.
The downstream dynamics of D-intentions is concerned with the high-level
rational guidance and monitoring of the action. First, of course, the D-intention
must be kept alive in prospective memory until the time comes to carry it out. When
it does, one essential function of a D-intention is to ensure the rational control of the
ongoing action. It is important to emphasize that what is specifically at stake here is
the rational control of the action, since, as we shall see, P-intentions and M-inten-
tions also have control functions, although of different types.
What should we understand rational control to be? Here, I will follow Buekens,
Maesen, and Vanmechelen (2001) who describe rational control as taking two forms,
‘tracking control’ and ‘collateral control’, the second of which is often ignored in the
literature. Tracking control involves making sure that each successive step in the
action plan is successfully implemented before moving to the next step. It also
involves revising the action plan when unforeseen circumstances make it impossible
to successfully proceed as originally thought. Collateral control involves controlling
for the side effects of accomplishing an action. The agent may notice undesirable side
effects of her ongoing action and correct her way of accomplishing it in order to min-
imize them, or even abort the action. The main purpose of control as it is exercised at
the level of D-intentions is to insure that the way the action is carried out does not
flout the reasons the agent had for her action in the first place or violate the values,
norms of coherence, general policies and rules of conduct to which she subscribes.
Although I have emphasized the rationality constraints at play at both the
upstream and downstream stages of D-intentions, some qualifications are in order.
We can distinguish between a normative and a constitutive conception of these ratio-
nality constraints. On a normative reading, rationality constraints apply to D-inten-
tions in the sense that we ought to want to form D-intentions to do the things we
think are best and we ought to want to have plans that are both internally and exter-
184 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

nally consistent insofar as this is a condition of their being successfully carried out in
a non-accidental fashion. On a constitutive reading, an intention does not qualify as
a D-intention unless these constraints are satisfied. It is clear that the rationality con-
straints, understood constitutively, are implausibly strong to say the least. Weakness
of the will, emotional impingement on decision processes and the partial encapsula-
tion of belief are commonplace phenomena. As social psychologists (and those we
live with) never tire of telling us, most of us fall short of satisfying or even approx-
imating the requirements of global and long-term consistency. If the rationality con-
straints are understood normatively, as I suggest they should, they can tell us only
how intentions and plans ought to be formed for us to qualify as rational agents,
while allowing that our cognitive behavior does not always meet the normative stan-
dards that it ought to.
Yet, insofar as ‘‘ought’’ imply ‘‘can’’, the rationality constraints that bear on both
the upstream and downstream dynamics of D-intentions require the presence of a
network of inferential relations among intentions, beliefs, and desires. Concepts
are the inferentially relevant constituents of intentional states. Their sharing a com-
mon conceptual representational format is what makes possible a form of global
consistency, at the personal level, of our desires, beliefs, intentions and other prop-
ositional attitudes. If we accept this common view, what follows is that for D-inten-
tions to ever be such as to satisfy the rationality constraints they ought to, they must
have conceptual content.
In a nutshell then, the content of D-intentions is both conceptual and at least
partly descriptive. Because many aspects of an intended action will depend on yet
unknown or unpredictable features of the situation in which it is eventually carried
out, the initial description of the type of action leaves indeterminate many aspects of
the action. A D-intention therefore always presupposes some measure of faith on the
part of the agent, in the sense that the agent must trust herself at least implicitly to be
able, once the time to act comes, to adjust her action plan to the situation at hand.

2.2. Proximal intentions (P-intentions)

As we did with D-intentions, we can distinguish between the upstream and the
downstream dynamics of P-intentions. Their upstream dynamics are concerned with
the generation of an intention to start acting now. The downstream dynamics con-
cern the period that goes from the initiation of the action up to its completion.3
A P-intention often inherits an action plan from a D-intention. Its task is then to
anchor this plan in the situation of action. The temporal anchoring, the decision to
start acting now is but one aspect of this process. Once the agent has established a
perceptual information-link to the situation of action, she must insure that the action
plan is implemented in that situation. This means that she must generate an indexical
representation of the action to be performed, that is a representation that fits the

3
Note that what I mean here by completion is simply the end of the action process, whether the action is
successful or not.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 185

specification inherited from the D-intention while anchoring it to the situation at

hand. This anchoring process may be further characterized using the intentional
schema theory proposed by Barresi and Moore (1996). Schemas are structures that
organize information from different sources according to rules of integration to yield
new perceptual or conceptual units. Schemas can be arranged in a hierarchy of levels
according to their degree of dependence on current perceptual information.4 The
problem at the level of P-intentions consists in integrating conceptual information
about intended action inherited from the D-intention with perceptual information
about the current situation and memory information about one’s motor repertoire
to yield a more definite representation of the action to be performed. In other words,
it consists in moving from an abstract schema (D-intention) to a schema that meets
the brief set by the D-intention but is also constrained by current perceptual
information.
At the downstream stage, P-intentions have to ensure that the imagined actions
become current through situational control of their unfolding. As we did for D-
intentions, we can distinguish between tracking and collateral control, where track-
ing control enables an agent to keep track of her way of accomplishing an action and
to adjust what she does to maximize her chances of success, while collateral control is
concerned with the side effects of accomplishing an action. Here, the main difference
between P-intentions and D-intentions is that the former exercise tracking and col-
lateral control with regard to the immediate goal and the situation as currently per-
ceived, whereas the latter are concerned with the overall goal and the respect of
global consistency and coherence constraints.
Insofar as a P-intention is tied to a corresponding ongoing action and gets
deployed concurrently with it, it is subject to severe temporal constraints. These tem-
poral constraints are of two kinds: cognitive and action-related. Firstly, P-intentions
are concerned with aspects of the situation of action and of the activity of the agent
that are explicitly perceived and conceptualized to some degree. They integrate a
broad range of information about the agent, the goal and the context of action. This
integration requires a rather long processing time. Therefore, the time scale of P-
intentions is the time scale of explicit perception and thought. Second, their tempo-
rality is also constrained by what we may call the tempo of the action. This is literally
the case when, say, one is playing a piece of music on the piano and must respect the
tempo and rhythm of the piece. It is also the case in many other kinds of actions. In a
game of tennis, one is allowed very little time to decide on how to return a serve. A
slow tempo offers better conditions for online conscious guidance and control of the
action, since the agent has more time to decide on adjustments or to consider and
evaluate possible side effects. In contrast, when the tempo is extremely fast, possibil-
ities for online conscious control may be very limited.

4
Note that in their paper Barresi and Moore are mostly interested in intentional schemas underlying
social understanding, that is, schemas integrating first and third person sources of information about
object-directed activities, and in how, with the development of the imagination, these schemas can
relinquish their dependence on current information. In contrast, I am interested in how we can move from
abstract schemas to schemas constrained by current perceptual information.
186 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

2.3. Motor intentions (M-intentions)

D-intentions and P-intentions are responsible for high-level forms of guidance

and monitoring, applying to aspects of the situation of action and of the activity
of the agent that are perceived or conceptualized. However, work in the cognitive
neuroscience of action shows that there also exist levels of guidance and control
of an ongoing action that are much more specific, responsible for the precision
and smoothness of its execution, and operate at a finer time scale.
M-intentions involve what neuroscientists call motor representations. I will not
here attempt to review the already considerable and fast growing empirical literature
on motor representations. For my present purpose, a brief description of the main
characteristics of these representations will suffice. It is now generally agreed that
there exist two visual systems, dedicated respectively to vision for action and for
the identification and recognition of objects and scenes.5 The vision for action system
extracts from visual stimuli information about the properties of objects and situa-
tions that is relevant to action, and uses this information to build motor representa-
tions used in effecting rapid visuo-motor transformations. The motor representations
produced by this system have three important characteristics. First, the attributes of
objects and situations are represented in a format useful for the immediate selection
of appropriate motor patterns. For instance, if one wants to grab an object, its spa-
tial position will be represented in terms of the movements needed to reach for it and
its shape and size in terms of the type of hand grip it affords. Second, these represen-
tations of the movements to be effected reflect an implicit knowledge of biomechan-
ical constraints and the kinematic and dynamic rules governing the motor system.
Thus, for instance, the movements of the effectors will be programmed so as to avoid
awkward or uncomfortable limb positions and to minimize the time spent in extreme
joint angles. Third, a motor representation normally codes for transitive movements,
where the goal of the action determines the global organization of the motor
sequence. For instance, the type of grip chosen for a given object is a function not
just of its intrinsic characteristics (its shape and size) but also of the subsequent
use one wants to make of it. The same cup will be seized in different ways depending
on whether one wants to carry it to one’s lips or to put it upside down. A given sit-
uation usually affords more than just one possibility for action and can therefore be
pragmatically organized in many different ways. Recent work suggests that the affor-
dances of an object or situation are automatically detected even in the absence of any
intention to act. These affordances automatically prepotentiate corresponding motor
programs (Grèzes & Decety, 2002; Grèzes, Tucker, Armony, Ellis, & Passingham,
2003; Tucker & Ellis, 1998).
One can therefore also distinguish two moments in the dynamics of M-intentions.
The upstream dynamics lead to the selection of one among the typically several pre-
potentialized motor programs. When a M-intention is governed by a P-intention and

5
This of course does not mean that the two systems do not interact in some ways. See Milner and
Goodale (1995), Rossetti and Revonsuo (2000), and Jacob and Jeannerod (2003) for discussions of these
interactions.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 187

inherits its goal from it, the presence of the goal tends to increase the salience of one
of these possible pragmatic organizations of the situation and thus allow for the
selection of the corresponding motor program. Forming a P-intention to act on
an object, say reach for a pen, typically involves focusing one’s attention on the
object that is to be the target of the action. As Campbell (2002) points out, we need
to explain how the motor system manages to connect to the very object identified on
the basis of perceptual experience. Campbell proposes that ‘‘conscious attention to
the object will include some awareness of the location of the object, and that the tar-
get for processing by the visuo-motor system can be identified as ‘the object at that
location’’’ (2002, p. 55). In other words, common location is the binding principle for
perception and for action, for objects represented at the level of P-intentions and
objects represented at the level of M-intentions. The role of conscious attention is
to define a target for the visuo-motor system. Once the target is defined, it is the
job of the visuo-motor system to set the parameters for action on the object. Yet,
it can also be the case that M-intentions are formed in the absence of a P-intention.
In such cases, the upstream dynamics work in a different way. According to the
model proposed by Shallice (1988) there is then a competition among motor pro-
grams, with the program showing the strongest activation being triggered as a result
of a process he calls contention scheduling. The guidance and monitoring functions
of M-intentions are exercised as part of their downstream dynamics. They are
responsible for setting the precise parameters of motor commands and for fine motor
adjustments and rapid corrections during execution. In Section 3, I will say more
about the mechanisms that allow them to play these roles.
The motor system responsible for the production of M-intentions exhibits some of
the features considered by Fodor (1983) as characteristic of modular systems. It is
informationally encapsulated to some degree and its cognitive penetrability is lim-
ited. One illustration of its informational encapsulation is the fact that specification
of motor commands by the motor system is, initially at least, relatively insensitive to
perceptual illusions, both visual and tactile (Bridgeman, 1989; Haffenden & Goodale,
1998; Marcel, 2003). Yet, obviously the motor system cannot be fully encapsulated.
If it were, it would be impossible to explain how a P-intention can trigger motor
behavior, or how the way we grasp an object depends not just on immediate sensory
affordances but also on our prior knowledge of the function of this object. But it is
likely that the motor system has only limited access to information from other cog-
nitive systems, including systems that underlie conscious perception.
A second feature of the motor system is its limited cognitive penetrability. Some
global aspects of its operation appear to be consciously accessible and to be reflected
in conscious motor imagery (Decety & Michel, 1989; Decety, Jeannerod, Durozard,
& Baverel, 1993; Decety et al., 1994; Jeannerod, 1994). Yet, we are not aware of the
precise details of the motor commands that are used to generate our actions, or of
the way immediate sensory information is used for the fine-tuning of those com-
mands (Fourneret & Jeannerod, 1998). For instance, several pointing experiments
(Castiello, Paulignan, & Jeannerod, 1991; Goodale, Pélisson, & Prablanc, 1986) have
shown that in a task where subjects have to point with their finger a target, they can
do so accurately even on trials where the target is suddenly displaced by several
188 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

degrees and they have to adjust their trajectories. Moreover, they can do so while
remaining completely unaware both of the displacement of the target and of their
own corrections. One series of experiments devised by Rossetti and his co-workers
(Pisella, Arzi, & Rossetti, 1998) is especially instructive. In one condition, a green
target was initially presented and subjects were requested to point at it at instructed
rates. On some trials the visual target was altered at the time of movement onset. It
could either jump to a new location, change color or both. Subjects were instructed
to point to the new location when the target simply jumped, but to interrupt their
ongoing movement when the target changed color or both changed color and
jumped. The results showed that when the target changed both color and position
in a time window of about 200–290 ms, the subjects would make very fast inflight
movement corrections, pointing at the displaced target instead of interrupting their
ongoing movement. According to the explanatory scheme proposed here, this exper-
iment may be interpreted as showing that M-intentions have their own dynamics, not
entirely under the control of P-intentions.
These kinds of experiments also illustrate the fact that P-intentions and M-inten-
tions operate at different time scales. The type of control exercised by P-intentions is,
as we have seen, based on explicit perceptual experience. Temporal constraints on
perceptual processes set a minimal temporal threshold for perceptual information
to become accessible. Rossetti et al.’s experiments illustrate the existence of at least
a partial incompatibility between the temporal constraints the motor system must
satisfy to perform smooth online corrections and adjustments of an action and the
temporal constraints on perceptual awareness.

2.4. General dynamics of intentions

Some characteristics of the macro-level dynamics of the transition from D-inten-

tions to P-intentions and M-intentions can easily be inferred from what was said of
the local dynamics of each level of intention. In particular, intentions at each level
were assigned a specific role in, respectively, the rational, situational and motor guid-
ance and control of the action. This implies that a D-intention does not cease to exist
and play a role once it has given rise to a corresponding P-intention and similarly a
P-intention does not go away once the corresponding M-intention has been gener-
ated. Rather, all three levels of intentions coexist, each exerting its own form of con-
trol over the action.
Yet the relation between the intentions at the three levels is not merely one of co-
existence. They form an intentional cascade, with D-intentions causally generating
P-intentions and P-intentions causally generating in turn M-intentions. More specif-
ically, a D-intention may be said to trigger P-level processes providing them with an
action plan that may still be mostly descriptive and abstract. The task of the P-level
processes is then to anchor this action plan in the current situation and come up with
a more detailed representation of the action tailored to the situation at hand. As
another way to put it, P-level processes take as input both a specification of the
action to be performed provided by the D-intention and perceptual information
on the situation, including information on the agent’s own state, and produce as out-
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 189

put a more detailed indexical representation. Similarly, P-intentions trigger M-level

processes providing them with a situated representation of the action, say a target at
a certain location and a given action to be performed on that target. Their task is
then to process information on that target and to come up with a sensori-motor rep-
resentation of the action that sets its parameters. Fig. 1 gives a summary represen-
tation of this intentional cascade and its temporal course.
What I have said so far on the dynamics of the three levels of intentions in no way
implies that all actions require the presence of the entire intentional cascade. Some
decisions to act are made on the fly and do not warrant a distinction between a
D-intention and a P-intention. The existence of automatic, spontaneous or routine
actions suggests that it is not even always necessary that I form a P-intention in order
to start acting. It is interesting to note that even when a given action happens to be
controlled by a P-intention, it is not necessarily this P-intention that triggered the
action. While a routine action unfolds, I can become aware of what I am doing
and decide whether or not I should go on with the action. If I decide to carry on,
the action that had been initially triggered by a M-intention is now also controlled
by a P-intention. It should also be noted that P-intentions can have varying degrees
of control on the unfolding of an action. Well-practiced actions require little online
control by P-intentions. In contrast, novel or difficult actions are typically much
more closely controlled by P-intentions.
Let me close this section with two interrelated sets of remarks in response to one
possible objection. One may worry that what I call M-intentions occupy a rather spe-
cial status in the conceptual framework presented here and do not really deserve to
be called intentions. I agree that M-intentions lack some of the features traditionally
associated with intentions – for instance, their contents are not propositional and we
may not be aware of them or have only partial access to their content. Yet, they

Deliberation & Planning Rational guidance & control

D

Situational
guidance
Situational anchoring & control
P

Motor
Parameter Guidance
specif. & control
M
Mind

World

Overt movement

Time

Fig. 1. The intentional cascade of D-intentions, P-intentions, and M-intentions.

190 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

share three core characteristics of intentions. They represent goals and means to
those goals. They have, in Searle’s terminology, a world-to-mind direction of fit:
in achieving success of fit the world is altered to fit the content of M-intentions.
Finally, they have, in Searle’s terminology again, a mind-to-world direction of cau-
sation: they cause the realization of what they represent. Insofar as they share these
characteristics with D-intentions and P-intentions, one may, I think, have some jus-
tification in calling them intentions as well.
Perhaps another way of spelling out the objection is to say that intentions as
traditionally conceived are directed at actions, whereas M-intentions are directed
at mere movements. Many causal theorists, including Davidson (1980), have
tended to identify actions with bodily movements. Indeed, early versions of the
causal theory of actions were premised on the view that movements that are
actions and movements that are mere happenings are indistinguishable in them-
selves and that the essential difference between them lies in their prior causal his-
tory. This view has been rightly criticized by several philosophers (Brand, 1984;
Frankfurt, 1978; Hornsby, 1980; Searle, 1983). For instance, Searle argues for
what may be termed a componential view of action.6 An action is not a mere
bodily movement, but consists in two parts, the movement and the intention-
in-action that causes that movement. I would like to go further along this com-
ponential route, building on some insights of Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt (1978)
argues that what distinguishes an action from a mere bodily movement is the fact
that the person is in some particular relation to the movements of his body dur-
ing the time in which he’s performing them and that this relation is one of guid-
ance. He also claims that: ‘‘The fact that our movements when we are acting are
purposive is not the effect of something we do. It is a characteristic of the oper-
ation at that time of the systems we are’’ (1978, p. 74) Frankfurt is right to point
out that we cannot, on pain of infinite regress, conceive of our guidance of our
movements while we are acting as requiring that we perform various further
actions. His more cryptic claim that guidance is a characteristic of the operation
of the systems we are can, I think, be more illuminatingly spelled out in terms of
the notion of motor control. I therefore propose to say that an action in the min-
imal sense is an intentional movement, and consists of two parts: the bodily
movement itself and the M-intention that causes and guides this movement. An
intentional action in turn also consists in two parts: an action or intentional
movement, understood in the sense just outlined, and the P-intention that causes
and guides it. Finally, only D-intentions fit the traditional view of intentions as
states characteristically directed at actions in the full-bloodied sense and as states
distinct from the action they cause.

6
Although when speaking of actions neuroscientists and psychologists often mean overt movements of
the body, this not always the case. Jeannerod (2006), for instance, holds a componential view and argues
that bodily movements are merely the overt part of actions that also necessarily involve a covert,
representational part.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 191

3. A theoretical model of action control

Central to recent work on motor control and motor learning is the idea that the
motor control system makes use of internal models, which mimic aspects of the agent
and of the external world.
The concept of internal models has been explored in depth by engineers who have
proposed computational models incorporating the idea of control strategies based
on internal models and have applied these models in the fields of robotics, neural net-
works and adaptive control. There is now growing evidence that similar strategies
are used in human motor control (Frith, Blakemore, & Wolpert, 2000; Jeannerod,
1997; Jordan & Wolpert, 1999; Wolpert, 1997; Wolpert & Ghahramani, 2000; Wol-
pert, Ghahramani, & Jordan, 1995). There are two main kinds of internal models rel-
evant for human motor control: forward and inverse models. Forward models (also
called predictive models) mimic or represent the causal flow of a process in a system
and use it to predict the next state of that system. Inverse models (or controllers)
work in the opposite direction: they compute the motor commands that would have
to be carried out to move a system from its current state to a certain desired state. Of
special interest is the idea that the control of action depends in a large part on the
coupling of inverse and forward models through a series of comparators, where com-
parators can be defined as mechanisms that compare two signals and use the result of
the comparison for various kinds of regulation. Fig. 2 provides a typical illustration
of the way these basic components are thought to be organized.
In a nutshell, inverse models compute the motor commands for achieving a
desired state given the current state of the system and the current state of the envi-
ronment. An efference copy of the motor commands is fed to a forward dynamic
model that generates a prediction of the consequences of performing this motor com-
mand. This computational model also incorporates three kinds of comparators. A
first kind of comparator takes as input representations of the desired state and of
the predicted state. If a difference is found, an error signal is sent to the inverse
model. Such a mechanism is useful in at least two ways. First, it can be used to main-
tain accurate performance in the presence of feedback delays. In most sensori-motor
loops, the feedback delays are large and can result in inaccuracy or instability of the
motor performance. The internal feedback of the predicted state of the system can be
used before the actual sensory feedback is available to determine performance error
and trigger corrections. This mechanism can also be used for mental practise and
planning. During mental practise or in planning, forward models can be used to pre-
dict the sensory outcome of an action without actually performing the action. A
comparison between desired state and predicted outcome could help the inverse
model select between possible actions or it could improve the tuning of the inverse
model.
A second kind of comparator mechanism compares the predicted consequences of
a motor command with its actual consequences. The result of this comparison can be
used to update the forward model and improve its functioning. It can also be used to
filter sensory information and to distinguish the component that is due to self-move-
ment from that due to changes in the world (Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 1998,
192 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

Goal

Desired State

Affordances

Inverse models

Motor
commands Forward
Predicted state
models

Movement

Actual state

Sensory feedback

Estimated
actual state

Fig. 2. The basic components of a motor control system based on internals models. Adapted from Frith
et al. (2000).

1999). Finally, a third kind of comparison is between desired state and actual feed-
back. Errors derived from the difference between the desired state and the actual
state can be used to update the inverse models and improve performance. This kind
of comparison is therefore important for motor learning.
Although this way of thinking of the control of action has proven very fruitful, its
main application has been to fine-grained aspects of motor control, such as the spec-
ification of motor commands and the prediction of the sensory consequences of their
execution, corresponding to the level of M-intentions. Yet, there is no good reason
why the idea of internal models should not be used in thinking about more global
aspects of action specification. Presumably, the deliberative processes at work at
the level of D-intentions make use of internal models of the world – both general the-
ories such as folk-physics, folk-biology of folk-psychology and more specialized
bodies of knowledge – as well as of the self-model the agent has of her desires, values,
general policies and rules of conduct. Of course, the kinds of models exploited at this
level have little to do with the internal models of the dynamics or kinematics of the
motor apparatus. The contents represented at the level of D-intentions as well as the
format in which these contents are represented and the computational processes that
operate on them are obviously rather different from the contents, representational
formats and computational processes operating at the level of M-intentions. Simi-
larly, what are compared at this level are propositional (discrete) representations
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 193

of intended, predicted and actual states, rather than continuous, analogue represen-
tations requiring computationally more costly comparison mechanisms. Yet, the
general idea that internal models divide into inverse models that given a goal com-
pute means towards that goal and forward models which compute the consequences
of implementing these means retains its validity at the level of D-intentions. And so
does the idea that specifying an action plan and monitoring its execution rely on the
coupling of inverse and forward models.
Similarly, it is highly plausible that action specification at the level of P-intentions
makes use of internal models and that these internal models are different from both
D-level and M-level internal models. On the one hand, as we have seen, the role of P-
intentions is to anchor an action plan in a given situation of action and to select an
appropriate action program. To play that role, they have to integrate a broad range
of both conceptual and perceptual information about the current situation of the
agent, the current goal and the context of action to yield a situated action plan, more
specific than the typically rather abstract action plan formed at the level of D-inten-
tions. On the other hand, as Rossetti’s experiments discussed in the previous section
illustrate, the representational resources available at the level of P-intentions are
richer than the representational resources used by M-intentions and include informa-
tion about conceptual or non-spatial perceptual properties of the situation not avail-
able to M-intentions. For instance, some of the confusion surrounding recent
discussions of the exact nature of the impairment underlying delusions of control
in patients with schizophrenia could probably be avoided by explicitly distinguishing
between the predictions made by forward models at the level of P- and M-
intentions.7
I therefore suggest that the information-processing model of action control in
terms of internal models be explicitly combined with the threefold distinction among
levels of intentions discussed in the previous section, thus yielding a richer theoretical
framework for thinking about action. Fig. 3 provides a schematic representation of
the more complex and, hopefully, more realistic view of action specification and con-
trol that results from this combination.
Let us take stock. What I have tried to do so far, is provide a characterization of
the several stages in the process of action specification, from sets of beliefs and
desires to detailed movements of several body parts. Extending an influential com-
putational model of action control, I have also tried to offer a sketch of how the
mind/brain could progressively generate, select, specify and monitor the parameters
of intended actions, indicating when particular kinds of action representations are
generated and how they are used. What I now want to explore is the idea that some
of these information-processing events may have phenomenal counterparts and that
links between conscious experiences during voluntary action and action specification
processes may be identified by considering their respective contents and temporal
properties.

7
For a discussion, see Pacherie, Green, and Bayne (2006).
194 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

D-intention Overarching Goal(s)

Beliefs
Practical reasoning
& desires

Predicted
Predictors state

P-intention
Situated goal
Context

Motor Program

Predictors Predicted
state

M-intention
Instantaneous goal
Spatial
constraints
Movement
parametrization

Predictors Predicted
state
Perturbations
Movement

Actual State

Fig. 3. A hierarchical model of action specification, with three levels of intentions and action control.

4. The phenomenology of action: a preliminary regimentation

It is now time to return to the issues with which this paper started. Both philo-
sophical and empirical investigations highlight the fact that the phenomenology of
action has many facets. This raises several questions: how are these various aspects
of the phenomenology of action related? To what extent are they dissociable? Are
some more basic than others? What are their sources and how exactly do they relate
to action specification and action control mechanisms?
Let me start with some distinctions and a preliminary regimentation of these fac-
ets of the phenomenology of action based on what their content is about.
One distinction is between physical actions and mental actions and their respec-
tive phenomenology. Typically, physical actions involve the production of causal
effects in the external world through movements of the body of the agent, while men-
tal actions, such as attending to something or trying to remember the name of the
person, do not. Here, I will focus on the phenomenology of physical actions, an
important element of which is a sense of oneself as a physical agent producing phys-
ical effects in the world via its bodily interactions with it.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 195

A second important distinction is between a long-term sense of agency and an

occurrent sense of agency. The former may be thought to include both a sense of
oneself as an agent apart from any particular action, i.e., a sense of one’s capacity
for action over time, and a form of self-narrative where one’s past actions and pro-
jected future actions are given a general coherence and unified through a set of over-
arching goals, motivations, projects and general lines of conduct. The latter is the
sense of agency one experiences at the time one is preparing or performing a partic-
ular action.
A third distinction is between detached and immersed awareness. Immersed
awareness is the kind of non-reflective experience one has when one is fully engaged
in an activity, while detached awareness requires a form of reflective consciousness,
where the agent, so to speak, mentally steps back and observes himself acting or
introspects what he is doing. Detached awareness can take at least two forms: a
‘third-person’ form where the detachment consists in the agent adopting the third-
person stance of an external observer towards his own activity and a ‘first-person’
form where the agent introspects the thoughts and experiences he has while prepar-
ing and performing an action. In what follows, I’ll be mostly concerned with what
Marcel (2003), who draws similar distinctions, calls a minimal sense of agency, that
is, our immersed awareness of our current action.
Yet, even so circumscribed, the phenomenology of acting is not something mono-
lithic; it includes a number of distinguishable aspects. One way to draw these distinc-
tions is in terms of the component elements of the content of our awareness of our
current actions. First, some aspects of the phenomenology of agency concern the
action itself, what is being done, while others concern the agent of the action, her
awareness that she is acting or that she is the agent of the action. The former aspects,
constituting what we may call awareness of action, themselves subdivide into what
and how, i.e., awareness of the goal pursued and awareness of the means employed
to attain this goal. The latter aspects of the phenomenology of action, the sense of
agency proper, may itself be subdivided into a sense of intentionality or intentional
causation, a sense of initiation and a sense of control. Note that this preliminary reg-
imentation is not meant to preempt the question whether these various aspects are
dissociable or not, for instance whether we can be aware of what we are doing inde-
pendently of an awareness of how we are doing it or whether we can be aware of
what we are doing without at the same time experiencing this action as ours.
Let us now move forward and examine how these component elements of the con-
tent of the phenomenology of agency could relate to component representations
built at various stages of the process of action specification.

5. Awareness of action

5.1. What

Actions have a goal and typically the phenomenology of doing involves an ele-
ment of purposiveness. In other words, we are aware to some degree that we are
196 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

engaged in purposive activity. According to the model of action specification

described earlier, the goal of an action can be specified at the three levels of M-inten-
tions, P-intentions, and D-intentions. What are their respective contributions to
what-awareness – our awareness of what we are doing?
It is unclear whether we can be aware of our instantaneous motor goals, as they
are implemented in a sensori-motor format. As I argued earlier, D-intentions, P-
intentions, and M-intentions employ different representational formats and the rep-
resentations at these levels have different temporal properties. There is some evidence
that the representational format of M-intentions is incommensurable with the repre-
sentational format or formats of our phenomenology and that M-intentions are too
short-lived to be accessible to consciousness. One line of evidence in favor of incom-
mensurability comes from the study of patients with visual agnosia. For instance, the
patient DF, studied by Milner and Goodale (1995) was unable to recognize everyday
objects, to visually identify simple shapes or to tell whether two visual shapes were
the same or different. Yet her visuo-motor abilities were intact. When asked to pick
up an object, she shaped her hand optimally for the grip, and when asked to post a
card through a slit, she oriented the card correctly. The co-existence in such patients
of impaired conscious visual perception and preserved visuo-motor abilities suggests
that visuo-motor representations are normally not derived from conscious visual
perceptions but built independently. It also suggests that conscious visual represen-
tations cannot be directly derived from intact sensori-motor representations. Simi-
larly, in Rossetti’s experiment described earlier, the surprise and frustration of the
subjects at their inability to interrupt their ongoing movement when the target both
changed color and jumped, suggests that they were unaware of the goal of their
action as specified at the level of M-intentions. Yet, M-intentions may play a role
in one’s sense of agency for an action, as we’ll see in Section 6.
In contrast to M-intentions, P-intentions specify our situated goals and represent
them in a perceptual representational format readily accessible to consciousness.
Through them we can be aware of what our immediate goals are. For instance, one
might be aware of the movement of one’s arm as an act of reaching for the doorknob,
and perhaps as an act of reaching for the doorknob in order to open the door more
widely than it is rather than to close it. Yet, when asked what I am doing, I will typically
be able to provide a fuller answer than just ‘I am opening the door’. For instance, I may
say without hesitation that I am leaving my office to attend a seminar.
Can this be recovered from information available to P-processes? Arguably not.
Different actions can realize the same further intention – I may have chosen to jump
out of the window to go the seminar – and, conversely, the same action (to open a
door) can realize a number of different further intentions. I may, say, open the door
not to go to a seminar but to check the nature of a strange noise I heard in the cor-
ridor. Here’s a more extreme example from Kevin Falvey: ‘‘Suppose a friend stops
by my house and wants to go for a walk, and I say, ‘‘I can’t; I am making bread.’’
This could be true even if as I say it I’m sitting on the couch reading the newspaper –
perhaps I am waiting for the bread to raise before putting it in the oven.’’ (2000, p.
22). Such information about what one is doing can only be recovered from D-inten-
tions. As Falvey’s example shows forcefully, the immediate situation or one’s imme-
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 197

diate actions may yield no clue as to what one is doing in this richer sense. Further-
more, because D-intentions can be the outcome of a conscious process of practical
reasoning, they may also have access to one’s reasons for acting. To the question
‘‘why are you making bread?’’, Falvey’s character could answer, say, that he had
guests coming for dinner and wanted to treat them with homemade bread.
In a nutshell, as Fig. 4 below illustrates, I suggest that what-awareness has two
main sources. P-intentions provide us with a thin sense of what we are doing,
restricted to our immediate goal, whereas D-intentions provide a thicker form of
what-awareness, a representation of the kind of action it is at a more abstract level,
and of one’s reasons for performing it.

D-intention Overarching Goal(s)

A
Beliefs
Practical reasoning
& desires
E
Predicted
Predictors state
B
P-intention
Situated goal
Context

Motor Program C

Predictors Predicted
state

M-intention
Instantaneous goal
Spatial
constraints
Movement
parametrization

Predicted
D
Predictors
state
Perturbations
Movement

Actual State

Fig. 4. The sources of what- and how-awareness. D-intentions provide a thick form of what-awareness, a
representation of the kind of action it is and of one’s reasons for performing it (A). P-intentions provide us
with a thin sense of what we are doing, restricted to our immediate goal (B). Our awareness of our
movements is normally limited and rests for the most part on our awareness of the predictions made at the
level of P-intentions and on the comparison between these predictions and consciously available feedback
(C). When the signals used to specify movement parameters and control execution at the level of M-
intentions are too discrepant for errors to be automatically corrected, control is passed back to the level of
P-intentions (D). When conscious compensation strategies at the level of by P-intentions fail, control is
passed back to D-intentions for a more drastic revision of one’s action plan (E).
198 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

5.2. How

Beyond being aware of what we are doing, in the sense of being aware of the goal
of our action, we may also have some awareness of our specific manner of bringing
about this desired result. Let us call this aspect of the awareness of action how-
awareness. In the same way that in the process of action specification, there are three
different stages of goal specification, there are also three different stages of means
specification. Very schematically, at the more abstract level of D-intentions, means
are typically represented as subgoals or subactions; at the level of P-intentions they
are represented as movements of a certain type; finally, at the level of M-intentions
they are represented as fully specified movements. Once again, we must ask which of
these representations of means are accessible to consciousness and what they con-
tribute to our how-awareness for our current actions.
But let me start with some remarks on the notions of means and of basic actions.
First, as several commentators have noted following Goldman (1970), the phrase
‘‘doing A by doing B’’ does not always express a causal relation between the produc-
tion of A and the production of B. At least three cases must be distinguished. The
first is indeed causal generation. Doing A by doing B counts as an instance of causal
generation when the production of B causes the production of A. For instance, turn-
ing on the light by flipping a switch or breaking the glass by dropping it on a hard
surface count as instances of causal generation.8 The second case is conventional
generation, where doing B (in circumstances C) counts as doing A in virtue of a rule
or convention that stipulates that is so counts. Thus, signaling a left turn by extend-
ing one’s left arm or voting in favor of the motion by raising one’s hand are instances
of conventional generation. The third case is circumstantial generation, where doing
B counts as doing A only if certain circumstances obtain. For instance, one breaks
the world record for in the 100 m for men by running it in 9.77 s only in circum-
stances where no one has yet run this distance in 9.77 s or less. Such were the circum-
stances in June 2005 when Asafa Powell covered the distance in 9.77 s, but one would
not break the world record today by running 100 m in 9.77 s.
Another important distinction is between two notions of basic actions. As Horns-
by (1980) argued, one should distinguish between causal basicness and intentional
basicness. Moving one’s hand is causally more basic than turning on the light,
because moving one’s hand is what causes the light to go on.9 An action is intention-

8
Note that Goldman defends a fine-grained theory of action individuation according to which an action
is an exemplification by an agent at a given time of an act-property, what he calls an act-token. Thus, for
Goldman turning on the light and flipping a switch are two different actions since they are exemplifications
of distinct act-properties. In contrast, coarse-grained theorists such as Davidson would claim that they are
merely two different descriptions of the same action. Second and importantly, Goldman does not claim
that my action of flipping on the switch causes my action of turning on the light but that it causally
generates it. Causation and causal generation are for Goldman two different and mutually exclusive
notions. He defines causal generation as follows: ‘‘Act-token A of agent S causally generates act-token A 0
of agent S only if (a) A causes E, and (b) A 0 consists in S’s causing E.’’ (1970, p. 23).
9
Note that Hornsby (1980) actually introduces her two notions of basicness as relations between
different descriptions of a single action rather than relations between different actions.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 199

ally basic for one if one knows how to do it directly or ‘‘just like that’’ and can do it
intentionally without having to do something else intentionally in order to do it. The
notion of intentionally basic action is related to know-how and should be relativized
to individual agents. Although for most people raising one’s arm is an intentionally
basic action, executing a trill may be a basic action for a professional pianist, but not
for the novice piano player. Causal basicness and intentional basicness do not always
go hand in hand. For instance, contracting such and such muscles is causally more
basic than raising one’s arm, but, unless perhaps one is a yogi, contracting such and
such muscles is not something intentionally basic. Rather, raising one’s arm is inten-
tionally more basic than contracting such and such muscles; one intentionally con-
tracts this set of muscles by intentionally raising one’s arm.
My reasons for drawing attention to these distinctions will shortly become appar-
ent. Returning to the issue of how-awareness, it is important to note that what
counts as means vs. goal is level-dependent. What counts as means at the level of
D-intentions are typically the subgoals in achieving the goal and these subgoals
are represented in an abstract, semantic way. At this level, the relation of means
to goals can take any of three forms introduced earlier: causal, conventional or cir-
cumstantial. When the D-intention is for a familiar action, say, going to work, we
frequently do not need to explicitly consider the means to achieve this and as a result
lack explicit awareness of the subgoals towards achieving our goal, even though they
are in principle accessible to consciousness. Importantly, when moving from D-
intentions to P-intentions and reaching a further, finer-grained, stage in the specifi-
cation of action, these subgoals that are treated as means at the level of D-intentions
become immediate situated goals while means correspond to ways of implementing
these goals. From this level on, the question of means becomes the question of bodily
movements and trajectories and means are to be understood in causal and circum-
stantial terms. So to what extent are we aware of our bodily movements? Awareness
of movements appears to be modulated both by the intentional basicness of the
action for the agent and by the degree of causal basicness of the action. Typically,
agents have little or no awareness of how they accomplish actions that are intention-
ally basic for them as well as little awareness of the details of their movements
beyond their more global parameters. For instance, I am normally aware that I
am raising my arm to reach the cookie jar on the top shelf of the cupboard but have
little or no awareness of how I raise my arm.
In a series of experiments, Jeannerod and co-workers (Fourneret & Jeannerod,
1998; Slachewsky et al., 2001) investigated subjects’ awareness of their move-
ments. Subjects were instructed to draw lines in the sagittal direction to a visual
target with a stylus on a digital tablet. They could not see their hand; only the
trajectory of the stylus was visible as a line on a computer screen, superimposed
on the hand movement. A directional bias (to the right or to the left) was intro-
duced electronically, so that in order to reach the target, the hand-held stylus had
to be moved in a direction opposite to the bias. At the end of each trial, subjects
were asked in which direction they thought their hand had moved by indicating
the line corresponding to their estimated direction on a chart presenting lines ori-
ented in different directions.
200 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

These experiments revealed several important points. Subjects accurately cor-

rected for the bias in tracing a line that appeared visually to be directed to the target.
When the bias was small, this resulted from an automatic adjustment of their hand
movements in a direction opposite to the bias. Subjects tended to ignore the veridical
trajectory of their hand in making a conscious judgment about its direction. Instead,
they adhered to the direction seen on the screen and based their report on visual cues,
thus ignoring non-visual (e.g., motor and proprioceptive) signals.10 In other words,
when biases remained small enough the visuo-motor system is able to appropriately
use information for producing accurate corrections to reach a target, but that this
information was not accessed consciously. However, when the bias exceeded a mean
value of about 14°, subjects changed strategy and began to use conscious monitoring
of their hand movement to correct for the bias and to reach the target. Yet, even
though they consciously noticed the discrepancy between what they were doing
and what they saw on the screen, subjects either experienced their movements as
underestimates of their actual deviation or in the opposite direction to their actual
adjusted movements. This transition from automatic to conscious control can be
interpreted in at least two ways. According to Jeannerod and colleagues, when the
discrepancy between the seen trajectory and the felt trajectory becomes too large
to be automatically corrected, subjects become aware of it and use conscious com-
pensation strategies. An alternative interpretation is that the change of strategy does
not result from the conscious detection of a large discrepancy between visual and
proprioceptive information but from the detection of a large discrepancy between
predicted visual state and actual visual state. More precisely, the ongoing failure
of the automatic control system to correct errors would result in control being passed
back to the level of P-intentions in effect sending it a message of the form ‘something
is wrong’ and conscious detection of error would then be the result of a comparison
of predicted visual state and actual visual state at the level of P-intentions.
One reason for preferring the latter interpretation comes from the even more strik-
ing results of Marcel’s vibro-tactile experiments (Marcel, 2003). By vibrating the biceps
tendon at the elbow at certain frequencies, one can induce a reflex movement of the
arm. If this movement of the arm is blocked, there occurs the illusion that the elbow
is moving in the manner opposite to the reflex. Especially when the subject cannot
see his stimulated arm, his hand feels to be in a position very different from its actual
position. In his experiments, Marcel exploited this vibro-tactile illusion of limb posi-
tion. In particular, in one condition subjects undergoing the illusion were asked to
move their unseen hand to a target position indicated by a light. On some trials, the
actual position of the arm was such that the agent had to move his arm to the left to
reach the target position, while its felt illusory position suggested that the arm would
have to be moved to the right to reach it. Subjects were asked (a) to draw with their

10
The mode of response used in this experiment (indicating a line on a chart) may be thought to have
induced a bias in leading the subjects to base their report on visual cues. Yet, in a variant of the
experiment, subjects were asked instead to reproduce the movement they had made with their eyes closed.
This change in the mode of response had no effect on their reports. Subjects still adhered to the direction
seen on the computer screen (Jeannerod, personal communication).
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 201

other hand the movement they had to make to reach the target location (pre-movement
drawing), (2) to move their unseen arm to the target location, (3) to draw with their free
hand the movement they had just made (post-movement drawing). Quite interestingly,
pre-movement drawing always followed the illusion, i.e., picturing the movement to be
made as a displacement towards the right; the actual movement was always to the left
showing no sensitivity to the illusion; in post-movement drawings, 60–70% of the sub-
jects drew the movement in the same direction as their pre-movement drawing, suggest-
ing that they had not noticed the difference between the movement they thought they
had to make and the movement they had actually performed.
The fact that a majority of subjects in this experiment failed to notice this huge dis-
crepancy between their predicted visual trajectory and their proprioceptive reafferences
makes it doubtful that in Jeannerod’s experiments the change of strategy of the subjects
stemmed mainly from their noticing a much smaller discrepancy between vision and
proprioception. An important difference between Jeannerod’s and Marcel’s experi-
ments is that Marcel’s subjects had no visual feedback, thus no way of comparing their
visual predictions regarding the trajectory of their arm with visual reafferences and no
way of noticing the discrepancy between the two kinds of signals. The nature of the
tasks in both experiments may explain why proprioceptive feedback was neglected.
In both cases, the action was directed at external goals in the form of visual targets.
These actions where the primary aim is to achieve an external goal are to be contrasted
with actions where the primary task is to make a movement. Experimental results from
Wohlschläger, Engbert, Haggard, Clark, and Kalogeras (2003) suggest that for the for-
mer type of action our experience of acting is essentially outward-looking and depen-
dent on information in exteroceptive modalities, both in the form of predictions and
feedback, while for the latter type of actions proprioceptive information plays a crucial
role.
In a nutshell, as illustrated in Fig. 4, our awareness of our movements rests for the
most part on our awareness of the predictions made at the level of P-intentions and on
the comparison between these predictions and consciously available exteroceptive
feedback. When the action unfolds smoothly, this awareness is typically extremely lim-
ited. Action specification and action control mechanisms at the level of M-intentions
operate automatically and remain outside the subject’s subjective experience. When
the signals this system uses to specify movement parameters and control execution
are too discrepant for errors to be automatically corrected, failure becomes salient
and control is passed back to the level of P-intentions. Thus, how-awareness typically
becomes more vivid and more detailed when we are confronted with action errors too
large to be automatically corrected. Yet sometimes, even conscious compensation
strategies at the level of by P-intentions will fail. In such cases, control will have to
be passed back to D-intentions for a more drastic revision of one’s action plan.

6. Sense of agency

At first blush, it may appear strange to consider separately the question of aware-
ness of action and the question of the sense of agency for our actions, where the sense
202 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

of agency is the sense that we are the author of that action. Philosophers often
assume that that there is a constitutive link between the agent’s awareness of an
action and a sense of agency and hold a claim of immunity to error through misi-
dentification for the self as agent. They assume either that our awareness of an action
includes the agent of the action as part of its content or that the identity of the agent
is guaranteed by the mode of access we have to the content of the action, where
introspective as opposed to observational access to the content of an action would
guarantee that the action is indeed ours. Yet, empirical evidence suggests that
although awareness of action and sense of agency normally go together, they can
sometimes come apart. The most striking illustrations are delusions of alien control
in schizophrenia where a subject is aware of the content of the action she is executing
but denies being the agent of this action. For instance, patients experiencing alien
control will report:
‘‘My fingers pick up the pen, but I don’t control them. What they do is nothing
to do with me.’’ (From Mellors, 1970, p. 18)
Or:

‘‘I felt like an automaton, guided by a female spirit who had entered me during
it [an arm movement].’’ (From Spence et al., 1997).
Such dissociations between awareness of action and sense of agency can also
occur in non-pathological conditions. Wegner’s experiments, for instance, suggest
that illusions of control – where we experience a sense of agency for actions someone
else is doing – and illusions of action projections – where we de not experience a
sense of agency for something we are doing – can be induced in normal subjects
(Wegner, 2002).
These data suggest that to give an account of action awareness is not yet to give
an account of the sense of agency. In this section, I will explore three main compo-
nents of the sense of agency – the sense of intentional causation, the sense of initia-
tion and the sense of control – each related in specific ways to predictor mechanisms.

6.1. The sense of intentional causation

Central to the sense of agency for an action is the sense that the agent is the cause
of that action, what one may call the sense of intentional causation. The sense of
intentional causation should be considered at two levels. At the more abstract level,
one may feel that one’s intention is the cause of one’s action. At a lower level, one
may feel that one’s movement is causing some effect.
Both Humphrey (1992) and Wegner (2002, 2005) focus on the sense of intentional
causation at the higher level. They argue that the sense of intentional causation11 is

11
Note that they use a different terminology. Humphrey uses the term ‘sense of ownership’ while Wegner
speaks of ‘the experience of conscious will’.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 203

inferred from the existence of a match between a prior intention and an observed
action.

The experience of consciously willing our actions seems to arise primarily when
we believe our thoughts have caused our actions. This happens when we have
thoughts that occur just before the actions, when these thoughts are consistent
with the actions, and when other potential causes of the actions are not present.
[. . .] In essence, the theory suggests that we experience ourselves as agents who
cause our actions when our minds provide us with previews of the actions that
turn out to be accurate when we observe the actions that ensue. (Wegner, 2005,
p. 23)
Some of Wegner’s experiments suggest that the experience of intentional causa-
tion can be non-veridical, with either agents having an experience of agency for an
action they have not actually caused (Wegner & Wheatley, 1999) or, conversely,
attributing to others their own actions (Wegner, Fuller, & Sparrow, 2003). The
capacity to predict or, as Wegner would say, to preview what will happen seems
to play a key role in the experience of intentional causation at this level. Thus, Weg-
ner and colleagues (Wegner, Sparrow, & Winerman, 2004) had participants watch
themselves in a mirror while another person behind them, hidden from view,
extended hands forward on each side where participants’ hands would normally
appear and performed a series of movements. When participants could hear instruc-
tions previewing the movements, their sense of agency for these movements was
enhanced, but such vicarious agency was not felt when the instructions followed
the movements.
Although the presence of a match between a prior intention and an observed
action may certainly contribute to the sense of intentional causation for an action,
there are two main problems with the view that the sense of agency arises solely
or primarily when there is such a match. First, as several commentators (Marcel,
2003; Pacherie, 1996, 2001; Spence, 2001) have pointed out, prior intentions or
awareness thereof do not seem to be necessary for the sense of agency. On many
occasions, we cannot remember what our prior intentions were and yet do not dis-
own the actions. Furthermore, many of our actions, impulsive, routine or automatic,
are not preceded by conscious intentions and yet we own them. Second, awareness of
an intention and of a match between intention and action does not seem sufficient for
a sense of agency. For instance, Frith, whose early account of delusions of control in
schizophrenia posited the existence of a deficit in intention-monitoring resulting in
the loss of awareness of ‘willed’ intentions to act (Frith, 1992), later acknowledged
that this ‘‘is inconsistent with the patients’ ability to follow the commands of the
experimenter, to avoid showing utilization behavior, and to correct errors on the
basis of sensory feedback about limb positions (which requires comparisons of
intended actions and their consequences)’’ (Frith et al., 2000, p. 1784). Similarly,
as Nahmias (2005) points out, Wegner’s three conditions of priority, consistency
and exclusivity between conscious intentions and actions can be met, without one
thereby experiencing oneself as the agent of the action.
204 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

The fact that one may experience a sense of intentional causation for one’s acts in
the absence of a corresponding conscious prior intention suggest that other types of
matches than just the match between a prior intention and an observed action play a
role. One such match is between an action and its consequences. Haggard and col-
leagues (Haggard & Clark, 2003; Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002) have shown
that when a voluntary act (a button press) causes an effect (a tone), the perceived
time of initiating the act is closer to the perceived time of the effect. Specifically,
the action (the button press) is shifted forwards in time towards the effect it pro-
duces, while the effect is shifted backwards in time towards the action that produces
it.
Haggard calls this phenomenon intentional binding and suggests that it may be an
implicit measure of the sense of agency. While acknowledging that the exact neural
mechanisms that give rise to intentional binding have yet to be elucidated, Haggard
suggests it probably derives from predictive mechanisms of action control. There are
several lines of evidence for this view. First, intentional binding depends critically on
the presence of voluntary movement and requires an efferent signal. When similar
movements and auditory effects occur involuntarily, the binding effect is reversed
and cause and effect are perceived as further apart in time than they actually are. Sec-
ond, the experience of intentional causation appears to be constructed at the time of
the action itself, as an immediate by-product of the motor control circuits that gen-
erate and control the physical movement itself. Haggard and Clark (2003) used TMS
to insert occasional involuntary movements of the right finger at a time when the
subject was intending to press the button, but had not yet done so. They found that
if the intention was interrupted by an imposed involuntary movement causing the
button press, followed by the tone, intentional binding did not occur. These results
show that an (incomplete) intention followed by the appropriate effect is not suffi-
cient for intentional binding.
Third, intentional binding requires reliable relations between actions and effects
(Haggard et al., 2002; Sato & Yasuda, 2005). Thus, if a button press has been reli-
ably followed in the past by a certain tone after a given temporal interval, intentional
binding will be strong when the key press again produces the same tone with the
same timing but reduced if the key press evokes a tone at a different pitch or with
a different temporal interval. Yet, it is important to note that forward models are
not fixed entities but must be learned and updated through experience. There is some
evidence that intentional binding reflects this updating process. In the absence of a
prior representation of an action-effect relation, the only evidence about the exis-
tence of such a relation comes from current sensory data and what may be inferred
from these data. Such inferential processes are needed to uncover and learn contin-
gencies and they may influence the sense of agency for action effects during the
course of learning. In a recent experiment, Moore and Haggard (2007) investigated
the respective roles of prediction and inference in intentional binding. They found
that when the probability of the effect was high, the predictability of the effect influ-
enced the perceived time of the action and that a delay in the awareness of the action
indicative of binding occurred even on trials where the action produced no effect; in
contrast, when the predictability was low, this delay was found only on trials where
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 205

the auditory effect occurred, reflecting the presence of an inferential process. In addi-
tion to these long-term effects, they also found that very recent reinforcement of the
action-effect relation increased binding on action only trials.
Moore and Haggard speculate that these results are best explained using a Bayes-
ian framework. This Bayesian framework would integrate prior knowledge, both
long-term and short term, and new sensory data, weighting each source according
to its reliability. Thus, when effect probability is high, there should be a strong prior
representation of the action-effect-relation, which should make possible a clear pre-
diction about the occurrence of the effect. In contrast, when the effect probability is
low, there should be a weak prior representation of the action-effect relation, allow-
ing no clear prediction about the occurrence of the effect. Within this Bayesian
framework, the degree of intentional binding between action and effect and, correl-
atively, the degree to which one experiences a sense of intentional causation would be
based on the comparison of weighted prediction and weighted feedback, rather than
prediction and feedback simpliciter (see Fig. 5).
Although the intentional binding of an action and its effects may underlie the
experience of intentionality or intentional causation for an action, it is unclear
whether, as Haggard and Clark (2003) seem to suggest, an experience of intentional
causation for an action is tantamount to an experience that I caused this effect and
am therefore the author of that action. In a series of studies Wohlschläger et al.
(2003) showed that this binding effect and the associated sense of intentional causa-
tion also occur when we observe other people’s actions. Subjects had to estimate the
onset time of button press that they executed themselves or that they observed being
executed by someone else or else by a mechanical device. The estimate of the
machine actions was always different from those of self- and other-generated actions,
whereas the latter two were indistinguishable and showed a binding effect.

P-intention Situated goal

Inverse models

Predictor Predicted
state
M

Movement

Consequences Feedback

Fig. 5. The sense of intentional causation at the level of P-intentions. Weighted prediction and weighted
feedback are compared using a Bayesian computation. A binding mechanism binds movement (M) and
consequence (C) depending on the result of this computation.
206 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

These surprising findings need not be inconsistent with the predictive account of
intentional binding favored by Haggard, provided one assumes that the predictive
mechanisms used for action control also operate when one observes someone else
acting.12 If, however, intentional binding can occur for observed actions as well as
self-produced actions, it cannot be the basis of the sense of authorship for an action.
Frith (2005) points out that if the two kinds of experience are distinct, then it should
be possible for one to be impaired while the other remains intact. Indeed he suggests
that a patient with delusions of control may experience a strong sense of intentional
causation for an action he has just performed while lacking a sense of authorship for
that action.13 This dissociation of the two experiences would form the basis of an
explanation of delusions of control. It is unclear, however, whether the reverse dis-
sociation could occur, with someone feeling a strong sense of authorship for an
action in the absence of an experience of intentional causation. If indeed there are
no dissociations of this latter type, the experience of intentional causation associated
with intentional binding, although not sufficient to generate an experience of author-
ship for an action, would still be a necessary component of that experience.

6.2. The sense of initiation

According to Frith, Blakemore and Wolpert’s revised account of delusions of

alien control (Blakemore, Oakley, & Frith, 2003; Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith,
2002; Frith, 2005; Frith et al., 2000), in normal circumstances when an agent is per-
forming an action, she is aware of (i) her goal, (ii) her intention to move, (iii) her
movement having occurred, and (iv) her having initiated her movement. In contrast,
a patient with delusions of control has normal awareness of (i)–(iii) but not of (iv).14
According to this model, awareness of initiating a movement depends on awareness
of the predicted sensory consequences of the movement. This view is based on evi-
dence that awareness of initiating a movement in healthy subjects is reported by
the agent between 80–200 ms before the movement actually occurs (Libet, 1985;
Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983).
In experiments extending Libet’s work, Haggard and colleagues (Haggard &
Eimer, 1999; Haggard & Magno, 1999) confirmed that both intention judgments,
corresponding to awareness of an intention to move, and movement judgments, cor-
responding to the awareness of movement onset, preceded actual movement, but

12
There is increasing evidence that common brain circuits are used both to control one’s actions and to
represent observed actions performed by others (see Blakemore & Decety, 2001; Fogassi & Gallese, 2002;
and Grèzes & Decety, 2001 for reviews). Computational frameworks showing how predictive models used
for motor control can also be applied to others in social interaction, including action observation, have
also been proposed (Wolpert, Doya, & Kawato, 2003).
13
Note that although we exploit the same distinctions, Frith’s terminological choices differ from mine.
What I call the experience of intentional causation, he calls the experience of agency or intentionality; what
I call the sense of agency or authorship, he calls the experience of ownership or of being in control of an
action.
14
For a more detailed discussion of Frith’s revised model and its possible limitations, see Jeannerod and
Pacherie (2004) and Pacherie et al. (2006).
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 207

they also showed that both types of judgments were unrelated to the general readi-
ness potential but covaried with the lateralized readiness potential.15 This suggests
that awareness of an intention is tied not to the general aspects of action preparation
but to the selection of a specific motor program. This also suggests that both aware-
ness of intention and awareness of movements are associated with pre-motor pro-
cesses rather than motor processes themselves. In another experiment using
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Haggard and Magno (1999) showed that
applying TMS over the primary motor cortex created a large delay of the actual reac-
tion time (movement onset) but a much smaller delay of the time of awareness of
movement, whereas applying TMS over pre-motor areas, specifically the SMA, led
to a much smaller delay of actual reaction time but to a greater delay in the aware-
ness of movement. These data support the view that awareness of movement onset is
generated upstream of the primary motor cortex but downstream of the pre-motor
structures.
Interestingly, in another study, Sirigu and colleagues (Sirigu et al., 2004) showed
that patients with parietal damage could report when they started moving but not
when they first became aware of their intention to move, while cerebellar patients
behaved like normal subjects. Both the parietal cortex and the cerebellum are
thought to be involved in the predictive control of action: the cerebellum would
make rapid predictions about the sensory consequences of self-generated movement
at a very low level of movement execution, while the parietal lobe would be con-
cerned with more high-level predictions and more cognitive aspects of action (Blake-
more & Sirigu, 2003). (Within the present framework, we could say that the
cerebellum is involved in predictive control at the level of M-intentions and the pari-
etal lobe with predictive control at the level of P-intentions.)
These experimental results suggest that awareness of an intention to move is cor-
related with activity in the parietal cortex, corresponding to an early stage in motor
preparation. We can speculate that awareness of an intention to move corresponds
to the detection of a match between the predictions made by the parietal system and
the desired outcome. We can also speculate that when we are preparing to make a
movement, an inhibitory process is employed to prevent the movement from hap-
pening too early. The inhibition should be released only when a match is found
between the predicted consequences of the movement and the desired outcome. Fur-
thermore, when the prepared movement is part of a sequence of movements, inhibi-
tion should be released according to its position in the sequence and to the degree of
completion of earlier elements of the sequence.
As Haggard (2003) points out, the co-existence of awareness of intention and
awareness of movement onset within a single narrow window of pre-motor process-
ing suggests that binding these two representations may be important. In particular,
the efferent binding of these two representations may underlie the sense of initiation
for the action, where the sense of initiation is not just the sense that we started mov-

15
Intention judgments correspond to what Libet and Haggard call W-judgments, and movement
judgments to what they call M-judgments. The intention one is aware of when making a W-judgment is
what I would call a P-intention.
208 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

ing, but the sense that we started moving in accordance with our intention. It is
important to note that the efferent binding at stake here is not the intentional binding
discussed in Section 5.1. What I suggested earlier is that the intentional binding of an
action (movement onset) and its consequences gives rise to the experience of inten-
tional causation; what I am suggesting here is that the binding of intention and
movement onset gives rise to the experience of initiation, as represented in Fig. 6.
One should further note that in daily life actions typically involve complex
sequences of movements rather than the simple key presses or finger movements
favored in experimental settings. Although it may well be that for simple actions
the sense of initiation is an experience that arises only once at the outset of the
action, we should not think that this is generally true. Think of a prosaic action such
as getting a drink of water. It involves a number of sub-steps such as lifting the bot-
tle, pouring water into a glass, putting down the bottle, reaching for the glass and
bringing it to one’s lips. To start acting one need not have already computed the
motor commands for each of these steps. Rather, one computes the motor com-
mands corresponding to the initial steps and continues computing the motor com-
mands for the remaining steps while already carrying out the first steps. Yet, the
motor commands for each step must be validated through a comparison of their pre-
dicted consequences with the desired outcome and inhibition released when appro-
priate. Proper binding of intention and movement onset may be crucial for the
correct temporal execution of elements in the sequence. With actions involving a ser-
ies of steps, the sense of initiation does not reduce to a single brief experience at the
very beginning of the sequence. Rather, we have a series of events of initiation and a
comparable series of experiences of initiation.

P-intention Situated goal

A
Inverse models _ +

Predictor Predicted
state
B

Movement

Fig. 6. The sense of initiation at the level of P-intentions. The dotted arrow with the blunt head represents
an inhibitory link. The execution of the motor command is inhibited as long as there is no match between
desired and predicted state at the level of the P-intention. The awareness of an intention to move (A)
corresponds to the detection of such a match. As a result of this match inhibition is released, giving rise to
awareness of movement onset (B). The sense of initiation would result from the efferent binding of A and
B, represented here by the dash-dot.
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 209

6.3. The sense of control

Although the sense of initiation may be a crucial component of the sense of

agency for an action, it does not seem to offer the guarantee that the ensuing
action will be owned by the subject. For instance, we may sometime feel that we
initiated an action but do not control its course. If something unforeseen happens,
the action may get out of hand so to speak. We may feel we’ve lost control over it
and this feeling may result in a reduction or even abolition of the sense of agency
for the action. Similarly, it is unclear whether the experience of alien control in
schizophrenia is always associated with a lack of sense of initiation for the action.
In the patient’s report from Spence et al. (1997) I quoted earlier, the patient
described his experience as follows: ‘‘I felt like an automaton, guided by a female
spirit who had entered me during it [an arm movement]’’ (my emphasis). This sug-
gests that the experience of alien control for an action may sometime appear after
the action has started.
The sense of control may therefore be another crucial contributor to the normal
sense of agency for an action. Yet, it is doubtful whether the experience of control is
itself a simple, elementary phenomenon. It seems rather that the sense of control can
take different forms and varies along several dimensions and should be conceived as
a compound of more basic, partly dissociable experiences. First, it should be noticed
that talk of sense of control for an action can refer to two rather different kinds of
experience. On the one hand, it may refer to the extent to which one feels in control of
an action, where at one extreme everything happens exactly as expected and the
agent feels in full control of his action and at the other everything goes astray and
the agent feels completely powerless. On the other hand, by sense of control we
may refer to the sense that one has to exert control to generate and maintain an
appropriate action program despite perturbating factors. Normally control in this
latter sense is felt as effortful: the more one has to exert control to attain one’s goal,
the more effortful the action feels.
Second, according to the model of action specification and control I described in
Section 3, intentions at each of the three levels I distinguished exert their own specific
form of control and guidance over the action. Control and guidance at the level of
D-intentions must ensure that the successive steps in the action plan are imple-
mented. They must also ensure that the adjustments and corrections that may have
to be made while the action unfolds lead to the attainment of the overall goal and do
not flout the rationality and consistency constraints on which the action was pre-
mised. P-intentions anchor action plans both in time and in the situation of action.
Control and guidance at this level must take into account the characteristics of the
agent, the target of action and the surrounding context at the time of action. Actions
are represented in terms of motor programs and of the perceptual consequences of
their execution. Guidance and control consist in ensuring that the motor program
is implemented and, if necessary, in adjusting it so it yields the expected perceptual
consequences. Finally, M-intentions specify the detailed parameters of the selected
motor program. Motor control processes are responsible for the fast online adjust-
ment and fine-tuning of these parameters. We may therefore speak of rational con-
210 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

trol at the level of D-intentions, situational control at the level of P-intentions and
motor control at the level of M-intentions.
The experimental evidence we discussed in Section 5.2 suggests that motor control
at the level of M-intentions is automatic and that typically subjects are not aware of
the nature of the adjustments and corrections made at this level. It is only when the
discrepancy between predicted and actual sensory consequences of the movements
becomes too large to be automatically corrected that it becomes accessible to con-
sciousness. This suggests that the sensori-motor signals used for motor control could
contribute something to the experience of control. This contribution would, how-
ever, be limited in two ways: first, sensori-motor signals would only contribute to
the experience of control when large discrepancies are present and, second, these sig-
nals would only modulate the extent to which one feels in control of the action but
would not tell us the aspects in which the action escapes our full control.
At the level of P-intentions, the sense that one is in control would rely on the per-
ceived match or mismatch between the predicted perceptual effects, corresponding to
the situated goal, and the actual perceptual effects; while at the level of D-intention,
it would depend on whether our action plan is carried out successfully, in other
words on the conceptual match between the desired, predicted and actual conse-
quences of its successive steps. It is important to note that these two different forms
of the sense that one is in control can come apart. Perfect situational control over
one’s motor action will not guarantee the achievement of the overarching goal if
the action plan was badly thought out in the first place and, conversely, one’s general
goal may be achieved despite approximate situational control.
At this point it is important to stress both the similarities and dissimilarities
between the sense of intentional causation discussed in Section 6.1 and the sense
of control. Both experiences rely on predictions made by internal models and on
the comparison of these predictions with actual feedback. As we have seen, inten-
tional binding between an action and its consequences can occur even when the agent
had neither intended nor predicted these consequences, given a weak prior and reli-
able sensory feedback. In contrast, the sense that one is in control requires strong
priors and feedback that matches both the predicted and desired states. Skilled
motor behavior relies on accurate predictive models and practice is needed to learn
such predictive models. A novice tennis player, say, has not yet learned the relevant
contingencies and typically feels he has little control over what he is doing even when
the consequences of his actions are as desired. Sense of control and sense of inten-
tional causation therefore go hand in hand when the agent has a reliable internal
model, hence strong priors, and both desired and predicted states are congruent with
feedback, but they can dissociate in the absence of strong priors, where the agent
may retain a sense of intentional causation while lacking a sense of control.
The sense that one is in control is often, I suggest, a compound of three more
basic experiences: the sense of motor control, the sense of situational control and
the sense of rational control. In all three cases, the degree to which one feels in con-
trol depends on a comparison between desired, predicted and actual states, where the
better the match the stronger the sense of control. One important difference between
motor control on the one hand and situational and rational control on the other is
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 211

that when one does not feel in full motor control one is simply aware that something
is wrong, whereas when one’s does not feel in full situational or rational control one
can be aware not just that something is wrong but of what is wrong.
When something is wrong, one normally feels one has to exert control to keep the
action on track. The type of control one has to exert depends on the nature of the
perturbating factors. Perturbations may be due to external or to internal factors,
may be physical or not, may have been anticipated or not, and may affect motor, sit-
uational or rational control. Depending on their nature, resistance to perturbating
factors can require either physical or mental effort. For instance, lifting a heavy
box requires physical effort, reading in a noisy environment requires concentration,
and inhibiting a prepotent but inappropriate response requires mental effort. When
the effect of perturbating factors has been anticipated (I know that the box is heavier
than it looks, that I am in England and should drive on the left side of the road, that
solving this problem is difficult and requires concentration), the amount of force or
the attentional resources needed are pre-programmed and would be part of our
awareness of the content of our intention immediately prior to action. But when
these disturbances are unexpected, the sense that one has to exert control would have
its origins in signals indicating a discrepancy between predicted and actual state and
in the corrections and adjustments these signals would trigger.
Typically, although not always, the more one feels one is in control the less one
feels one has to exert control and vice versa. Yet, I think it would be a mistake to
dispense with one of these two notions in favor of the other, for they seem to make
rather different contributions to the sense of agency. Nahmias (2005) remarks that
the phenomenology of effortless control is complex and somewhat ambiguous. A
feeling of effortless control can sometimes give rise to a heightened sense of one’s
agency and sometimes involve a reduced sense of agency. One way to make sense
of this ambiguity is in terms of the distinction between the feeling that one is in con-
trol and the feeling that one has to exert control. We typically experience a feeling of
effortless control when we achieve a perfect match between action and goal without
having to go through corrections or adjustments. So in a way our sense of agency is
heightened since the performed action fully conforms to our intention. Yet, at the
same time, in such actions we meet with no resistance, either internal or external,
and do not experience the kind of contrast between what we want and what the
world will allow that would sharpen our sense of self. In contrast, in actions where
we meet with resistance and have to overcome perturbations, the actual conse-
quences of our actions do not match our predictions perfectly and in that respect
we do not feel that what we did was exactly what we wanted to do. Yet, at the same
time, our awareness of the efforts we have to make to try and keep the action on
track heighten our sense that we are indeed engaged in action.16

16
Another variable of interest in explaining the peculiar phenomenology of effortless control may be the
focus of attention of the agent. In particular, it would be worth exploring whether there is a correlation
between the feelings of heightened as opposed to reduced agency for effortless actions and the inward-
looking (movement of the body) or outward-looking (external goal) nature of the action.
212 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

Interestingly, executive control and feeling of mental effort are dissociable.

Naccache and colleagues (Naccache et al., 2005) report the case of a woman with
a left mesio-frontal cortex lesion including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).
This patient, RMB, and a group of comparison subjects, were tested on a Stroop
task, where subjects have to respond according to the ink color of a color world.
In congruent trials, the ink color and the word itself refer to the same response; in
incongruent trials the subject has to focus his executive attention to select the rel-
evant information (ink color) and to inhibit the prepotent response associated with
the irrelevant information (the printed color word). In normal patients, response
times are slower for incongruent trials, they report feelings of subjective effort
and these feelings correlate with higher skin-conductance responses (SCRs). In
contrast, RMB experienced no conscious feeling of mental effort and showed no
SCR, despite exhibiting normal executive control. Yet she understood the task.
For instance, commenting on an incongruent trial she said: ‘‘Yes, this one was a
tricky trial, with ink opposite to the word, thus it should be more difficult to
me; however, I do not feel any sensation of difficulty here.’’ (Naccache et al.,
2005, p. 1323). Naccache and colleagues note that this lack of consciousness of
mental effort coincides with a lack of bodily-mediated physiological responses
indexing mental effort in healthy subjects. They suggest that the lesion prevented
the residual activity of the right ACC, which still varied with the requirements
for executive attention, from signaling internal changes in executive recruitment
to the left-ventral-mesial prefrontal region known to be involved in the generation
of somatic markers. On this view, the feeling of conscious effort would be a by-
product of executive attention, but would not play a causal role in its deployment.
Yet, Naccache and colleagues do not mean to argue that subjective feelings accom-
panying voluntary actions are completely epiphenomenal. RMB demonstrated a
pattern of impaired behavior and SCRs in the Iowa gambling task devised by Bec-
hara, Damasio, and Damasio (2000) suggesting that her absence of subjective feel-
ings affected her decision-making and made her unable to progressively select the
advantageous decks of cards.
In a nutshell, the account I propose of the sense of control and its contribu-
tion to the sense of agency is as follows. The degree to which one feels in control
of an action is the weighted result of comparisons between desired, predicted and
actual states made at three levels of action control – motor control, situational
control and rational control – where comparisons at different levels may some-
times pull in different directions. The degree to which one feels one has to exert
control over an action depends on the amount of adjustments and corrections
one has to make to reduce the discrepancies between predictions and outcomes
created by perturbations of various kinds. Control in this latter sense is normally
felt as effortful, where the effort can be either mental or physical. Feeling that one
is in control may heighten the sense of agency for a given action insofar as the
result achieved fully conforms to the agent’s intention, while feeling that one has
to exert control over an action may heighten the sense that one is engaged in
action, despite there being no perfect match between what is achieved and how
and what was initially intended (see Fig. 7).
 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217 213

D-intention Overarching Goal(s)

E
Beliefs
Practical reasoning
& desires

Predicted C
Predictors state

P-intention
Situated goal
Context D

Motor Program

B
Predictors Predicted
state

M-intention
Instantaneous goal
Spatial
constraints
Movement
parametrization

Predicted A
Predictors
state
Perturbations
Movement

Actual State

Fig. 7. The sense of control: being in control and having to exert control. The degree to which one feels in
control of an action is the weighted result of comparisons between desired, predicted and actual states
made at three levels of action control: motor control (A), situational control (B), and rational control (C).
The degree to which one feels one has to exert control over an action and the situational (D) or rational (E)
nature of this control depends on the amount of adjustments and corrections one has to make to reduce
the discrepancies between predictions and outcomes created by perturbations of various kinds. Control in
this latter sense is normally felt as effortful.

To recap, in this section I tried to explore the main components of the sense of
agency. I argued that the sense of intentionality or intentional causation – that relies
on the efferent binding of an action and its effect – is probably a necessary compo-
nent of the sense of agency but is clearly not a sufficient mark of self-agency in so far
as it can be present when one observes actions performed by other agents. I also
argued that another form of efferent binding, between intention and movement
onset, may underlie the sense of initiation for an action and make a more important
contribution to the sense of authorship for an action. Finally, the sense of control –
typically a compound of three more basic experiences: the sense of motor control,
the sense of situational control and the sense of rational control – is another crucial
component of the sense of agency for an action.
214 E. Pacherie / Cognition 107 (2008) 179–217

7. Conclusion

In this paper I tried to show that there are important connections between pro-
cesses of action specification and control and various aspects of the phenomenology
of action. I investigated the main components of our awareness of action and our
sense of agency and explored their links to component representations and compar-
isons generated at various stages of the process of action specification. I pointed out
that both awareness of action and sense of agency have multiple sources, some more
important than others, and that these sources may contribute differentially according
to the nature of the action – whether it is outward- or inward-directed, skilled or not,
preceded by a conscious intention or not.
Although this paper investigated the possible sources of the phenomenology of
agency, it said next to nothing as to the possible causal role of awareness of action
or feelings of agency. If, as Wegner sometimes seems to argue (Wegner & Wheatley,
1999), the processes through which the phenomenology of agency is generated were
completely separate from the processes involved in action specification and control,
it would indeed be unlikely that conscious experience plays a causal role in the pro-
duction and control of action. Arguing that the two sets of processes are linked keeps
this option open but should not lead one to embrace without qualifications the view
that our experience of doing in all its aspects systematically plays a role in the pro-
duction, guidance and control of action. Rather than try and defend an all or none
view, we should, as the case reported by Naccache et al. suggests, be open to the idea
that some but not all of the processes of action production and control depend on
conscious experiences and be ready to acknowledge the complexity of cognitive–
experiential interactions.
Finally, the fact that the processes through which the phenomenology of agency is
generated are closely connected to the processes involved in action specification and
control suggests that our experience of doing is generally reliable but certainly not
that it is infallible. Both action control and awareness of agency rely on predictions
made by internal models. That reality conforms to these predictions may on occasion
happen by luck rather than through our agency. In such cases, our experience of
agency will be illusory. Yet the success of our predictions cannot in the general case
be a matter of luck, for, given their links, this would mean not just that our sense of
agency is illusory, but that agency itself is an illusion.

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