Free Will and Agency

Pupil dilations prior to freely timed actions reflect the reported timing of conscious intention

This study investigates antecedent pupil dilations (APDs) before voluntary actions and finds they correlate with the timing of conscious intention rather than movement or external stimuli.

The sense of agency from active causal inference

This study shows that the sense of agency arises from active causal inference, with participants forming and adjusting action plans to infer control, while schizophrenia patients show reduced plan diversity.

Neural correlates of an illusionary sense of agency caused by virtual reality

This study uses virtual reality to investigate the neural correlates of an illusionary sense of agency during passive observation, finding increased temporal binding linked to the right angular gyrus and inferior parietal lobule.

Autonomous behaviour and the limits of human volition

This study investigates adaptive autonomy in human decision-making by analyzing performance in a competitive game where participants must avoid habitual and sequential action patterns.

Humans progressively feel agency over events triggered before their actions

The paper investigates how humans adapt their sense of agency when consequences precede their actions in an AI-assisted environment, finding implicit learning occurs within an hour.

Temporal Dynamics of Brain Activity Predicting Sense of Agency over Muscle Movements

This study manipulates the sense of agency over electrically actuated muscle movements and identifies distinct neural processes predicting agency using EEG time-resolved decoding.

Human primary motor cortex indexes the onset of subjective intention in brain-machine-interface mediated actions

The paper examines neural dynamics in human primary motor cortex during brain-machine-interface mediated actions, showing that M1 encodes the onset of subjective intention.

Disentangling the Neural Correlates of Agency, Ownership and Multisensory Processing

This study investigates the neural correlates of body ownership and sense of agency using the rubber hand illusion, finding strong interrelation between these experiences and distinct brain regions involved.

Neural substrates of body ownership and agency during voluntary movement

This study investigates the neural correlates of body ownership and agency during voluntary movement using fMRI and identifies overlapping and distinct brain regions involved.

No evidence in favour of the existence of 'intentional' binding

The paper tests whether intentional binding, a measure of the sense of agency, is caused by action intention or sensory integration, and finds no evidence for intentional binding.

Mesoscale cortex-wide neural dynamics predict goal-directed, but not random actions in mice several seconds prior to movement

The paper shows that pre-movement neural activity in mice contains structured dynamics that predict goal-directed actions, but not random ones, several seconds before movement.

A spatial-attentional mechanism underlies action-related distortions of time judgement

The paper shows that spatial attention, not temporal illusion, explains action-related time perception distortions using a clock-hand timing task and attentional probe measurements.

Action-based predictions affect visual perception, neural processing, and pupil size, regardless of temporal predictability

The paper shows that self-generated stimuli are perceived as darker and elicit less neural activation than passive stimuli, regardless of temporal predictability.

Commanding or being a simple intermediary: how does it affect moral behavior and related brain mechanisms?

This paper investigates how commanding or acting as an intermediary affects moral behavior and brain mechanisms, finding no difference in agency between commanders and intermediaries but a neural response difference when agents are robots versus humans.

Judgments of agency are affected by sensory noise without recruiting metacognitive processing

This study investigates how sensory noise affects judgments of agency and finds that these judgments do not involve metacognitive processing like confidence judgments.

Shared responsibility decreases the sense of agency in the human brain

This study shows that sharing responsibility in social decision-making reduces the sense of agency, affecting motor preparation and outcome processing in the brain.

Sense of Agency for Mental Actions: Insights from a Belief-Based Action-Effect Paradigm

This study investigates the sense of agency for mental actions using a belief-based action-effect paradigm, finding comparable explicit reports and intentional binding effects for motor and mental actions.

Implicit agency is related to gamma power changes in an automatic imitation task

The paper examines neural oscillations during an automatic imitation task and finds that gamma power changes correlate with implicit agency.

Readiness Potential Prevalence During A Deliberate Decision-making Task

The paper examines neural markers in deliberate decision-making, finding distinct readiness and P300 potentials for arbitrary and deliberate choices, with readiness potential linked to decision content.

Confusions regarding stochastic fluctuations and accumulators in spontaneous movements

The paper clarifies confusions about the evidence and interpretation of stochastic fluctuations in spontaneous movements, focusing on the stochastic decision model and its implications for brain processes.

Movement-Preceding Neural Activity under Parametrically Varying Levels of Time Pressure

This study investigates how time pressure affects the readiness potential (RP) during self-initiated movements, finding non-linear changes in RP amplitude and non-stereotypical RP shapes.

Suppress me if you can: neurofeedback of the readiness potential

This study tests whether people can suppress their readiness potential (RP) through neurofeedback, finding no evidence of conscious control over RP magnitude during voluntary movements.

New measures of agency from an adaptive sensorimotor task

This paper introduces a short online motion tracking task to measure self-agency by assessing perceptual and metacognitive judgments of movement control.

Absence of electroencephalographic evidence of implicit action-effect intentional binding with varying effect probability

This study investigates whether changes in action-effect probability affect electrophysiological markers of intentional binding but finds no such evidence.

Preparatory Suppression and Facilitation of Voluntary and Involuntary Responses to Loud Acoustic Stimuli in an Anticipatory Timing Task.

This study examines how loud acoustic stimuli affect voluntary and involuntary responses during movement preparation, finding facilitation of voluntary actions and suppression of involuntary reflexes at specific timepoints.

The Readiness Potential reflects the internal source of action, rather than decision uncertainty

The study investigates whether the Readiness Potential (RP) reflects decision uncertainty or internal action source, finding that RP amplitude correlates with internal decision source rather than uncertainty.

Temporal experience modifies future thoughts: Manipulation of Libet's W influences difficulty assessment during a decision-making task

The paper investigates how the subjective timing of a decision (Libet's W) influences perceived difficulty in a decision-making task, finding a unidirectional effect of W on difficulty evaluation.

My voice therefore I spoke: sense of agency over speech enhanced in hearing self-voice

The paper investigates the sense of agency over speech, identifying two components: action-outcome causality and self-voice identity, and their roles in speech perception.

The Readiness Potential reflects expectation, not uncertainty, in the timing of action

This study investigates the neural correlate of voluntary action timing, finding that the Readiness Potential (RP) increases with learning, indicating it reflects planning rather than freedom from external constraints.

Investigating motor preparatory processes and conscious volition using machine learning

This study uses machine learning to analyze EEG data and shows motor preparatory processes begin up to 4.45 seconds before conscious awareness of a decision to move.