Specifying the Self for Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience investigations of self-experiencehave mainly focused on the mental attribution of features to the self (self-related processing). In this paper, we highlight another fundamental ,yet neglected, aspect of self-experience, that of being an agent.We propose that this aspect of self-experience depends on self-specifying processes, ones that implicitly specify the self by implementing a functional self/non-self distinction inperception, action, cognition and emotion. We describe two paradigmatic cases – sensorimotor integration andhomeostatic regulation – and use the principles from these cases to show how cognitive control, including emotion regulation, is also self-specifying. We argue that externally directed, attention-demanding tasks, rather than suppressing self-experience, give rise to the self-experience of being a cognitive–affective agent. We conclude with directions for experimental work based onour framework.