Andrea Desantis
Papers
1
Total Citations
37
H-Index
1
About
Andrea Desantis is a leading researcher in cognitive neuroscience, whose work centers on the mechanisms underlying the sense of agency—the feeling of control over one’s own actions and their outcomes. Her major contribution lies in advancing the "tracking control" model, which proposes that the sense of agency arises not just from learned action-outcome associations, but from a real-time, step-by-step monitoring process. In her highly cited 2016 paper, "The Sense of Agency as Tracking Control" (37 citations), she demonstrated that deviant intermediate steps between an action and its outcome reduce the sense of agency, providing compelling evidence for this dynamic model. This work has reshaped how researchers understand the continuous, predictive processes behind self-awareness and voluntary action. Desantis’s research has profound implications for fields ranging from robotics to clinical psychology, particularly in understanding conditions like schizophrenia, where agency is disrupted. Her innovative experimental designs and theoretical clarity have made her a key voice in the study of consciousness and motor control, earning her recognition as a rising star in cognitive science.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1The Sense of Agency as Tracking Control37 citations · 2016