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The mind's best trick: how we experience conscious will.
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1470 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
|February 14, 2003
Summary
Our conscious will might not directly cause our actions. Research suggests the feeling of willing an action could be the mind inferring authorship, not a direct perception of causation.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Philosophy of Mind
Background:
- The subjective experience of conscious will is fundamental to human agency.
- This feeling of volition often leads to the assumption that conscious thought directly causes action.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between the experience of conscious will and the actual causal processes underlying action.
- To explore whether the sense of willing an action is a direct perception or a post-hoc inference.
Main Methods:
- Review of cognitive, social, and neuropsychological studies on apparent mental causation.
- Analysis of experimental paradigms examining the perception of conscious will.
Main Results:
- Evidence suggests that experiences of conscious will can diverge from the true causal chain of events.
- The mind may construct a sense of authorship by inferring relationships between thoughts and actions.
Conclusions:
- The profound experience of conscious will may not be a direct perception of causation.
- Apparent mental causation could be a cognitive mechanism for estimating authorship rather than reflecting direct neural processes.