几个世纪以来,自由意志是否存在的问题一直困扰着哲学家。大约40年前,BenjaminLibet等认知神经科学家通过证明ERP组件,战备潜力(RP),在报告的决定采取行动的时间之前几百毫秒。Libetetal.(1983)认为,在我们经历任何有意识的意图之前,我们的大脑无意识地准备了运动,这导致了一些自由意志怀疑论者(例如,Ebert&Wegner,2011)认为自由意志不存在。虽然Libet对他的发现的解释引发了激烈的哲学辩论,最近提出了替代解释(Bode等人。,2014年;黄铜等人。,2019年;Schurger等人。,2012年;2021年)。Libet式实验的边界模型(ITB)集成表明,我们积累信息直到达到意图阈值,这触发了我们的意愿和自愿行为的执行经验。RP,从这个角度来看,它反映了决策过程本身,而不是无意识决策的结果。为了确定ITB模型是否更好地预测Libet风格实验中的行为模式,我们在经典Libet任务(VetoLibet任务)中添加了一个是否成分,并将VetoLibet任务与经典Libet任务中的行为度量进行了比较。我们假设VetoLibet任务中的信号积累将比经典Libet任务中的信号积累不那么陡峭,导致更长的等待时间和更早的自我报告的行动意图(即,W)。结果总体上支持了我们的假设。此外,古典Libet任务和VetoLibet任务之间的这些行为差异为将来对否决现象的调查建立了有价值的行为相关性。最后,这项研究也是Libet任务在在线环境中的首次应用,行为参数与以前的离线研究高度可比,进一步支持使用在线平台研究任意决策的可能性。
The question of whether free will exists or not has intrigued philosophers for centuries. About 40 years ago, cognitive neuroscientists such as Benjamin Libet have joined the discussion by demonstrating that an ERP component, the readiness potential (RP), precedes the reported time of decision to act by a few hundred milliseconds. Libet et al. (1983) argued that our brains unconsciously prepare the movement before we experience any conscious intention, which led some free will skeptics (e.g., Ebert & Wegner, 2011) to argue that free will does not exist. While Libet\'s interpretation of his findings initiated an intense philosophical debate, alternative interpretations have been put forward more recently (Bode et al., 2014; Brass et al., 2019; Schurger et al., 2012; 2021). Integration to bound models (ITB) of Libet-style experiments suggest that we accumulate information until an intention threshold is reached, which triggers our experience of intention and execution of voluntary behaviors. The RP, from this perspective reflects the decision process itself rather than the consequence of an unconscious decision. To determine if the ITB model better predicts behavioral patterns in Libet-style experiments, we added a whether-component to the classical Libet task (the Veto Libet task) and compared the behavioral measures in the Veto Libet task with the Classical Libet task. We hypothesized that the signal accumulation in the Veto Libet task would be less steep than in the Classical Libet task, resulting in longer wait times and earlier self-reported intentions to act (i.e., the W). The result in general supported our hypotheses. In addition, these behavioral differences between the Classical Libet task and the Veto Libet task established valuable behavioral correlates for future investigations into the vetoing phenomenon. Finally, this study was also the first application of the Libet task in an online setting, and the behavioral parameters were highly comparable to the previous offline studies, further supporting the possibility of using the online platform to study arbitrary decision-making.