Abstract

How do we become aware of our own actions? This classical question is still a matter of debate: does consciousness depend on central efferent signals or derive from peripheral information? In this paper, we had the opportunity to study a haptically deafferented patient using a well-tested experimental paradigm where a cognitive conflict is produced between motor intention, proprioception and visual feedback. Our results show that the patient was able to solve the conflict and to generate accurate movements to a target in the absence of proprioceptive feedback and with very limited visual feedback from her movements. Yet, she could not report any conscious perception of the conflict and showed no conscious knowledge of her actual performance. We suggest that information derived from efferent processes cannot in themselves be a source for conscious experience about our own actions.