Dissociable effects of agency and ownership on speech perception

Speech production relies on a forward model that predicts the sensory consequences of one’s vocal actions. When auditory feedback matches these predictions, event-related potentials (ERPs) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) are attenuated, supporting two partly overlapping experiences: agency (the sense of causing the action) and ownership (the sense that the voice belongs to oneself). Whether early sensory attenuation effects dissociate these experiences is unknown.We recorded EEG from 50 participants during a voice playback task. Agency was manipulated by contrasting self-chosen (self-generated) and unchosen (other-generated) words; ownership contrasted the participant’s own voice and the experimenter’s voice. Sensory attenuation of the N1 and P2 ERPs was measured, and their cortical generators were source-localized with eLORETA.N1 amplitude was selectively modulated by ownership, whereas the P2 indexed agency, suggesting that ownership precedes and subsequently impacts agency. Source localization revealed partially dissociable networks: ownership engaged a fronto-temporal network, including the insula, whereas agency recruited inferior parietal and somatosensory regions.These findings reveal a temporal and spatial dissociation between voice agency and ownership. They further suggest that the forward model integrates both sensorimotor predictions and memory-based representations to support a coherent sense of self in vocal communication.