Concept at a glance
- Definition: Two complementary senses proposed as markers of successful prediction-error minimization in interoceptive/exteroceptive predictive coding: presence (felt connection to the moment) and agency (felt control over outcomes in the world).
- Also called: effortless presence, sense of presence, sense of agency
Notes
- Originates in Seth, Suzuki & Critchley (2011), An interoceptive predictive coding model of conscious presence — not yet ingested as its own wiki study page.
Connections
- Related concepts: Interoceptive inference, Active inference, Perceptual inference (interoceptive), Embodied selfhood, Simulation map
- Key studies: Farb et al. (2015), Seth (2013)
- Debates: inferential?
Introduced by Seth, Suzuki & Critchley (2011) and cited within Seth (2013), then substantively extended in Farb et al. (2015). Framed as the “two complementary senses” through which the embodied self is realized via ongoing interoceptive interaction — see Embodied selfhood.
Presence
Presence is thought to arise when interoceptive and/or exteroceptive prediction errors (PEs) are successfully minimized. In the original Seth et al. (2011) account, this minimization was attributed to active inference (overt or physiological). Farb et al. extend this: presence is also reachable through Perceptual inference (interoceptive) — broadening the distribution of interoceptive priors (reducing their precision) so that relatively few visceral sensations are extreme enough to register as PE demanding a regulatory response. Successful iterations of perceptual inference are proposed to yield “effortless presence” (Sjölie 2014). Presence is framed as operating on a continuum of effort; extreme difficulty achieving it manifests clinically as depersonalization and derealization (linking to Seth 2013’s discussion of dissociative disorders — see Embodied selfhood).
Agency
Agency — a feeling of control over one’s actions, that one can act to produce results — is associated specifically with overt active inference: direct regulation of bodily sensation, or behavior change that indirectly shapes interoceptive state. Agency matters for a sense of responsibility for self-regulation (from breath monitoring to changing jobs).
The clinical double-edge of agency
Agency achieved through avoidance (e.g., withdrawal from a feared situation in anxiety) is reinforcing in the short term but prevents disconfirmation of the feared outcome — a form of active inference that is effective yet ultimately maladaptive. Catastrophic appraisals paired with active-inference “solutions” (a racing heart appraised as a heart attack → hospital visit; anticipatory rapid breathing appraised as incompetence → social withdrawal) entrench rather than resolve the underlying prediction errors. Farb et al. link this to appraisal theory (Scherer et al. 2001, agency at the heart of subjective well-being) and to contemplative accounts (Brown & Ryan 2003, presence at the heart of well-being) as two complementary lenses on the same predictive-coding substrate.