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Related Experiment Videos

Voluntary action and conscious awareness.

Patrick Haggard1, Sam Clark, Jeri Kalogeras

  • 1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. p.haggard@ucl.ac.uk

Nature Neuroscience
|March 16, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Our study reveals that the brain links voluntary actions and their sensory outcomes in conscious awareness. This "intentional binding" effect, where actions feel later and consequences earlier, is reversed for involuntary movements.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Philosophy of Mind

Background:

  • The subjective experience of free will is central to human consciousness.
  • Understanding the neural basis of action awareness is crucial for cognitive neuroscience.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the temporal perception of intentional actions and their sensory consequences.
  • To explore the neural mechanisms underlying the sense of agency and action consciousness.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized subjective time perception of voluntary movements and their sensory feedback.
  • Compared temporal judgments between voluntary actions and involuntary movements induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Main Results:

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  • Perceived timing of voluntary actions and their sensory consequences were "bound" together in awareness.
  • Voluntary movements were perceived as occurring later, and their consequences earlier, than objective timings.
  • This intentional binding effect was reversed for involuntary movements.

    • Conclusions:

    • The central nervous system (CNS) employs a specific neural mechanism to create "intentional binding" in conscious awareness.
    • This binding phenomenon is a key component in the conscious experience of generating one's own actions.
    • The findings provide insights into how the brain distinguishes self-generated actions from external events.