Beyond libet: Long-term prediction of free choices from neuroimaging signals

Haynes, John-Dylan

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-18015-6_10

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Book Chapter

Beyond libet: Long-term prediction of free choices from neuroimaging signals

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons19699

Haynes, John-Dylan
Max Planck Fellow Research Group Attention and Awareness, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society;
External Organizations;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Haynes, J.-D. (2011). Beyond libet: Long-term prediction of free choices from neuroimaging signals. In S. Dehaene, & Y. Christen (Eds.), Characterizing consciousness (pp. 161-174). Heidelberg: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-18015-6_10.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0003-42C6-3

Abstract

Since the famous experiments by Benjamin Libet it has been debated whether brain signals can precede and predict the outcome of decisions even before subjects believe to be consciously making up their mind. Now it is possible to directly assess such choice-predictive neural signals using multivariate pattern classification. We have shown that the specific outcome of free choices between different plans can be read out of brain activity even several seconds before it is made. Thus, an unconscious causal chain of events can occur outside subjective awareness even before a subject makes up their mind. The nature and computational role of the choice-predictive signals still requires further investigation. Most importantly, the link to “background” brain activity is currently unclear.