2019/10/23 by Uri Maoz, Gideon Yaffe, Christof Koch +1 · 1 citation
Neuroscience · Decision Sciences · #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Embodied and Extended Cognition
paper · doi:10.7554/elife.39787
openalex publication_date 2019/10/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
The readiness potential (RP)-a key ERP correlate of upcoming action-is known to precede subjects' reports of their decision to move. Some view this as evidence against a causal role for consciousness in human decision-making and thus against free-will. But previous work focused on arbitrary decisions-purposeless, unreasoned, and without consequences. It remains unknown to what degree the RP generalizes to deliberate, more ecological decisions. We directly compared deliberate and arbitrary decision-making during a 1000-donation task to non-profit organizations. While we found the expected RPs for arbitrary decisions, they were strikingly absent for deliberate ones. Our results and drift-diffusion model are congruent with the RP representing accumulation of noisy, random fluctuations that drive arbitrary-but not deliberate-decisions. They further point to different neural mechanisms underlying deliberate and arbitrary decisions, challenging the generalizability of studies that argue for no causal role for consciousness in decision-making to real-life decisions. Editorial note: This article has been through an editorial process in which the authors decide how to respond to the issues raised during peer review. The Reviewing Editor's assessment is that all the issues have been addressed (see decision letter).