Hypnotizing Libet: Readiness potentials with non-conscious volition (original) (raw)
Related papers
Barking up the wrong free: readiness potentials reflect processes independent of conscious will
Experimental Brain Research, 2013
In the early 1980s, libet found that a readiness potential (RP) over central scalp locations begins on average several hundred milliseconds before the reported time of awareness of willing to move (W). Haggard and Eimer Exp Brain Res 126(1):128-133, (1999) later found no correlation between the timing of the RP and W, suggesting that the RP does not reflect processes causal of W. However, they did find a positive correlation between the onset of the lateralized readiness potential (lRP) and W, suggesting that the lRP might reflect processes causal of W. Here, we report a failure to replicate Haggard and Eimer's lRP finding with a larger group of participants and several variations of their analytical method. Although we did find a between-subject correlation in just one of 12 related analyses of the lRP, we crucially found no within-subject covariation between lRP onset and W. these results suggest that the RP and lRP reflect processes independent of will and consciousness. this conclusion has significant implications for our understanding of the neural basis of motor action and potentially for arguments about free will and the causal role of consciousness.
Brainwaves and Intentions: The Readiness Potential and Its Relation to Free Will
2020
First discovered in 1965 by Kornhuber and Deecke, the readiness potential (RP) is a distinctive buildup of neural activity in motor areas of the brain that begins ~500 ms before voluntary movements. In 1983, Libet used the RP as the foundation for his argument against the existence of conscious free will. This argument became known as the classic model of the RP, which interprets the RP as a precursor to the conscious experience of volition and a quantifiable representation of unconscious brain activity preceding spontaneous movements. Although the classic model connected the RP to free will, the significance of the RP remains uncertain. In this presentation, we will discuss two interpretations of the RP as it relates to free will: the aforementioned classic model and the stochastic accumulator model. Since its introduction into the discussion on free will, the classic model has received numerous criticisms that can be encapsulated in “Libet’s paradox”. The paradox states that the c...
“Free will”: are we all equal? A dynamical perspective of the conscious intention to move
In their seminal (1983) study, Libet and colleagues suggested that awareness of one’s intention to act has a postdictive character in that it occurs long after cerebral activity leading to action has been initiated. Crucially, Libet et al. further suggested that the time window (6200 ms) between the conscious experience of the intention to act and the action itself offers people the possibility of “vetoing” the unfolding action. This raises the question of whether there are individual differences in the duration of this “veto window” and which components of the readiness potential (RP) and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) explain this variability. It has been reported that some psychiatric diseases lead to shorter intervals between conscious intentions and actions. However, it is unclear whether such patients suffer from impairment of the sense of volition, thus experiencing voluntary movements as involuntary, or whether voluntary inhibition of action is actually reduced, since conscious intention occurs later. We had two aims in the present paper. First, we aimed at clarifying the role of consciousness in voluntary actions by examining the relation between the duration of the veto window and impulsivity. Second, we sought to examine different components of the RP and LRP waveforms so as to attempt to explain observed variability in W judgments. Our results indicate (1) that impulsive people exhibit a shorter delay between their intention and the action than non-impulsive people, and (2) that this difference can hardly be attributed to a difference in time perception. Electroencephalography indicated that the rate of growth of the RP is relevant to explain differences in W judgments, since we observed that the RP at the moment of conscious intention is lower for people with late conscious intention than for people with early conscious intention. The onset and the intercept of these waveforms were less interpretable. These results bring new light on the role that consciousness plays in voluntary action.
On the Alleged Illusion of Conscious Will
2008
The belief that conscious will is merely ‘‘an illusion created by the brain’ ’ appears to be gaining in popularity among cognitive neuroscientists. Its main adherents usually refer to the classic, but controversial ‘Libet-experiments’, as the empirical evidence that vindicates this illusion-claim. However, based on recent work that provides other interpretations of the Libet-experiments, we argue that the illusion-claim is not only empirically invalid, but also theoretically incoherent, as it is rooted in a category mistake; namely, the presupposition that neuronal activity causes conscious will. We show that the illusion-claim is based on the behaviorist ‘input-output ’ paradigm, and discuss the notions of ‘self-organization ’ and ‘self-steering ’ to provide an alternative perspective on the causal efficacy of conscious will. In the final sections, a tentative theoretical picture is sketched of conscious will as an instance of self-steered self-organization. We conclude that the su...
Volition and the readiness potential
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1999
According to Libet, free will does not initiate the neural process that leads to action. Many points of his interpretation of results are questionable, but we should agree that voluntary acts are nonconsciously initiated. The idea of choice implies that one could have chosen to do something different. However, we can consider choice, decision and action as part of the natural world. Free will is not an illusion because free acts are not caused by external factors. According to a compatibilist view, the free agent is a brain system capable of choice, decision and action. The readiness potential will be seen as an expression of the workings of this free agent itself. A distinction is proposed between deliberate and non-deliberate voluntary actions. A testable empirical prediction is that the RP should be longer in the case of deliberate actions. Only what we call deliberate acts should be considered as really free. Acts that are voluntary but non-deliberate would then manifest an intermediate degree of free will.
2017
The sense of agency is the experience of initiating and controlling one’s voluntary actions and their outcomes. Intentional binding (the compressed time interval between voluntary actions and their outcomes) is increased in intentional action but requires no explicit reflection on agency. The reported experience of involuntariness is central to hypnotic responding, where strategic action is experienced as involuntary. We report reduced intentional binding in a hypnotically induced experience of involuntariness, providing an objective correlate of reports of involuntariness. We argue that reduced binding results from the diminished influence of motor intentions in the generation of the sense of agency when beliefs about whether an action is intended are altered. Thus, intentional binding depends upon awareness of intentions, showing that changes in metacognition of intentions affect perception.
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2010
Libet's data show that EEG readiness potentials begin before the urge to move is consciously felt. This result has been widely interpreted as showing that spontaneous voluntary movements are initiated preconsciously. We now report two new findings relevant to this conclusion. First, the question of whether readiness potentials (RPs) are precursors of movement per se or merely indicators of general readiness has always been moot. On the basis of both new experimental evidence and an inspection of the literature, we claim that Libet's Type II RPs 1 are neither necessary nor sufficient for spontaneous voluntary movement. Thus Type II RPs are likely to be related to general readiness rather than
2005) “On the Alleged Illusion of Conscious Will
2012
The belief that conscious will is merely ‘‘an illusion created by the brain’ ’ appears to be gaining in popularity among cognitive neuroscientists. Its main adherents usually refer to the classic, but controversial ‘Libet-experiments’, as the empirical evidence that vindicates this illusion-claim. However, based on recent work that provides other interpretations of the Libet-experiments, we argue that the illusion-claim is not only empirically invalid, but also theoretically incoherent, as it is rooted in a category mistake; namely, the presupposition that neuronal activity causes conscious will. We show that the illusion-claim is based on the behaviorist ‘input-output ’ paradigm, and discuss the notions of ‘self-organization ’ and ‘self-steering ’ to provide an alternative perspective on the causal efficacy of conscious will. In the final sections, a tentative theoretical picture is sketched of conscious will as an instance of self-steered self-organization. We conclude that the su...