Consciousness and the Sense of Agency in Psychology and Neuroscience

This Chapter’s principal aim is to find the causal explanation of action and the mechanism of conscious control of action implicated to represent the sense of agency, with due considerations for specific implications of the sense of agency for consciousness, self-consciousness, and action. Secondly, we analyze intentions for actions and for agency in the present and explore the role that intentions have for agency representation in relationship with initiation, control and, execution of action. Thirdly, we focus on the concept of the “illusion of agency”, intended as a critical perspective on the concept of free choice and overt representation of self for action. Lastly, the sense of agency as a precursor of empathic and social behavior is considered, in the light of mirror mechanism and simulation approach.