When time does not matter: cultures differ in their use of temporal cues to infer agency over action effects

Sense of agency (SoA) is the sense of having control over one’s own actions and through them events in the outside world. Sometimes temporal cues, that is temporal contiguity between action and effect, or temporal expectation regarding the occurrence of the effect are used to infer whether one has agency over an effect. This has mainly been investigated in Western cultures. However, Western and Eastern cultures differ in their time concepts and thus their usage of temporal cues may also differ. We investigated whether Western and Eastern cultures (Austrian vs. Mongolian students) use temporal cues differently. Participants performed adaption blocks in which actions were followed by immediate (immediate effect group) or by delayed (delayed effect group) effects. In subsequent test blocks the action–effect delay was varied and participants’ SoA over the effect was assessed. In Austrian students, the immediate effect group experienced more SoA for short action–effect delays, whereas the reverse was true for the delayed effect group. Thus, temporal expectation rather than temporal contiguity is used as predominant agency cue. In Mongolian students, SoA did not significantly differ between different action–effect delays in both groups, indicating that Mongolian students hardly rely on temporal cues. In conclusion, due to linear time concepts in Western cultures, the timing of an effect may be an important agency cue in Austrian students. However, due to cyclical time concepts in some Eastern cultures, it may be a less important agency cue in Mongolian students. Thus, the use of temporal agency cues is culture-dependent.