A Systematic Review of Literature on the Relationship Between Explicit Measurement of Sense of Agency and Body Perception

Abstract

The sense of agency concerns the experience of controlling our actions, referring both to superior and lower levels of psychological functioning that are also related to the physical dimension of agency. Diverse clinical conditions affect the awareness of being a bodily and agentive self. This systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship between individuals' sense of agency and body perception. APA PsycInfo, APA PsycArticles, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus were systematically searched for articles published until 08/11/2022. After removing the duplicates, a total of 5370 records were screened. Thirteen articles (fourteen studies) were selected based on the inclusion criteria used for the systematic review. In the last decades, this line of research has attracted a growing number of studies. However, studies are affected by the great heterogeneity of both constructs. Body perception and sense agency were operationalized across research in diverse ways, making evaluating the relationship between them very difficult. The findings suggest that the sense of agency may positively influence body perception. However, the outcomes of these studies could be affected by biases if participants do not experience the experimental context as realistic. In addition, there is a paucity of studies investigating the relationship between body perception and agency among individuals suffering from specific psychopathology or physical diseases. Following the review of the literature, the main objective for future research is to develop robust approaches for estimating the variability of these constructs as well as their relationships.