Riddhi Jain

Understanding agency is crucial for comprehending human action and mental health, particularly as a reduced sense of agency is a primary symptom of major depressive disorder. Our research investigates how agency is acquired and potentially lost in multi-agent environments among individuals with varying levels of depression, highlighting individual differences in agency perception. We have designed two sets of studies to examine how individuals with varying levels of depression learn and perceive contingencies between cues/actions and outcomes. We explore statistical, associative, and Bayesian (including active inference) models to explain our findings. 

In one set of studies, we designed a novel multi-agent task where participants voluntarily pressed a button over multiple trials and observed a simulated agent doing the same. Participants then reported how much control both agents had over a common outcome. Experimental conditions varied which agent (Self or Other) had control and the type of control (positive/excitatory, negative/inhibitory, or none).

In the other set of studies, participants observed a stream of trials where cues and outcomes might co-occur, appear separately, or be absent together, sometimes with non-target stimuli. This assesses how individuals with varying levels of depression perceive the absence of target stimuli and the presence of non-target stimuli.

In general, the findings revealed that depressive symptoms are linked to reduced sensitivity to inhibitory causal relations, reduced perceptions of agency, and a tendency to engage in frequent but less goal-directed actions when learning about causal structures.