Brain correlates of subjective freedom of choice.
Elisa Filevich, Patricia Vanneste, Marcel Brass, Wim Fias, Patrick Haggard, Simone Kühn
Consciousness and Cognition September 8, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2013.08.011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Functional neuroimaging study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Gyrus cinguli Motor cortex Prefrontal cortex Parietal lobe Humans Magnetic resonance imaging Brain mapping Choice behavior Volition Personal autonomy Psychomotor performance Reaction time Freedom Image processing, computer-assisted Female Young adult Functional neuroimaging FMRI Introspection Free choice |
| Key points | The authors report that brain activity associated with the subjective feeling of free choice occurred in a postcentral area distinct from the regions typically linked to defined free action, and that these correlates were not directly related to established neural correlates of defined free choice. They argue this calls into question traditional assumptions about the relation between the subjective experience of choosing and activity in the brain's so-called voluntary motor areas. |
Abstract
The subjective feeling of free choice is an important feature of human experience. Experimental tasks have typically studied free choice by contrasting free and instructed selection of response alternatives. These tasks have been criticised, and it remains unclear how they relate to the subjective feeling of freely choosing. We replicated previous findings of the fMRI correlates of free choice, defined objectively. We introduced a novel task in which participants could experience and report a graded sense of free choice. BOLD responses for conditions subjectively experienced as free identified a postcentral area distinct from the areas typically considered to be involved in free action. Thus, the brain correlates of subjective feeling of free action were not directly related to any established brain correlates of objectively-defined free action. Our results call into question traditional assumptions about the relation between subjective experience of choosing and activity in the brain's so-called voluntary motor areas.