The Neural Mechanisms of "Free Choice"

There is a recent article in Cerebral Cortex that explores the neural mechanisms of what the researchers take to be "free choice" (see here).  It's certainly the kind of thing Gardeners ought to find of interest.  The abstract is as follows:

The neural mechanisms underlying the selection and initiation of voluntary actions in the absence of external instructions are poorly understood. These mechanisms are usually investigated using a paradigm where different movement choices are self-generated by a participant on each trial. These "free choices" are compared with "instructed choices," in which a stimulus informs subjects which action to make on each trial. Here, we introduce a novel paradigm to investigate these modes of action selection, by measuring brain processes evoked by an instruction to either reverse or maintain free and instructed choices in the period before a "go" signal. An unpredictable instruction to change a response plan had different effects on free and instructed choices. In instructed trials, change cues evoked a larger P300 than no-change cues, leading to a significant interaction of choice and change condition. Free-choice trials displayed a trend toward the opposite pattern. These results suggest a difference between updating of free and instructed action choices. We propose a theoretical framework for internally generated action in which representations of alternative actions remain available until a late stage in motor preparation. This framework emphasizes the high modifiability of voluntary action.

Let the grumbling begin!

Comments

[Neil]

Don't grumble too much; clearly the authors don't mean 'free' by 'free' (and to their credit they put free in inverted commas when introducing it, signalling the use is stipulative).

[tnadelhoffer]

Oh, I didn't plan to grumble--that just seems to be the usual response by Gardeners when psychologists appear to encroach on our turf :)

[Eddy Nahmias]

Does anyone have access to this article such that they can email me a copy or post it here? The best I can get is the summary here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/ucl-ica021009.php
The opening sentence is: "The underlying sense of being in control of our own actions is challenged by new research from UCL..." and then the rest of the article explains the research, which suggests we have flexibility of choice (in a way that I suspect offers responses to the Libet research). The media can't help using the fear factor even when it's entirely inappropriate!

On another note, our own Tamler Sommers speaks here about the moral ramifications of A-rod's steroid use: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6259551.html

The last line is great!

[Tamler Sommers]

I just want to make it clear that I do NOT read US Weekly.