(Amphithéâtre)

Jeannerod, Marc Institut des Sciences Cognitives et Université Claude Bernard, Lyon.

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How do we recognize ourselves as an agent and how do we distinguish ourselves from other agents ? In this lecture, we examine theoretical and experimental evidence for a set of mechanisms by which we attribute our own body and our own actions to ourselves. These mechanisms are interesting to consider, for the reason that the ability to recognize oneself as the owner of a body -the sense of ownership- and the agent of a behavior -the sense of agency- is the way by which the self builds up as an entity independent from the external world and from other selves. One of the main outcomes of this chapter will be that our body is a behaving body, and that selfidentifi cation and the self/other distinction is largely dependent on the recognition of one’s own actions. Thus, the distinction between self generated actions and actions produced by other agents, and the corresponding ability to attribute an action to its proper agent will appear to be key functions for self-identification.