Please note this is the pre-publication manuscript to the article that has been published in the BPS Psych-Talk magazine (also the formatting is not quite right but I’m not sure how to format it properly on here):
Evangelou, G. (2019). The neuropsychology of free will: An expensive mechanism. BPS Psych-Talk, 92, 6-8.
The neuropsychology of free will: An expensive mechanism
George Evangelou
Concerns of investigating free will
What is free will? Let’s save for the infinite philosophical rabbit hole for now… Please raise your hand. Congratulations, whether you raised it or not, you exercised your free will to do so (I hope). That will suffice as a basic example and allow us to move forward. Conflict with free will and its subject to question has been around long before neuroscience, whether it be: theology (the paradox between an omniscient being and our free will), physics (subject to physical laws of the universe), biology and evolution (subject to our genetic make-up and survival of the fittest) or of course, philosophy (“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”; Rousseau, 1762).
The ethical concerns in the face of neuroscience are that of moral responsibility and a challenge to the sense of agency, threatening to reveal our actions and choices to be physically intelligible (Roskies, 2006) – subject to a mechanism of the brain. However, as Roskies states, neuroscience so far has revealed probabilistic neuronal processes, and whether this unpredictability is due to indeterministic processes or complex deterministic changes, is beyond that which neuroscience can evidence. Thus, neuroscientific evidence bears no weight on the fundamental laws of the universe.
What can neuroscience offer?
So, what does neuroscience offer to the debate of free will? Determinism aside, evidence for brain mechanisms involved in automatic and voluntary actions/decisions does pose interesting implications.
The infamous Libet et al (1982) experiment sat participants in a chair and essentially removed any external limitations, leaving subjects to simply flick/flex their wrist at any moment they urged or wished to do so. Readiness-potentials (RPs)–slow electrical change in the scalp recorded before self-paced act–in these subjects preceded activation of the muscle by approximately 550msec. With the production of volitional movement being preceded by brain activity, Libet was left to question just when the conscious intention to do so appears. Libet et al (1983) introduced a ‘clock-time’ to establish this temporal relation. Subjects reported their first-awareness of their wish to act and this was compared with the RPs. Participants first-awareness was recorded on average of 150msec. before motor act and onset RPs were recorded 550mec. on average before the act; this leaves approximately 400msec. for brain process to prepare for the voluntary act. Libet concluded the volitional process to be initiated unconsciously but can be vetoed via conscious function–therefore not excluding free will.
Libet (1999) indicated the unconscious process to begin in an unknown area before activating the supplementary motor area (SMA), which is responsible for the control of movement. This notion has been supported by neurological disorders of volition whereby initiation of movement is generated in the frontal limbic system and in situations such as tics, bypasses the SMA and acts directly on the primary motor cortex (Kranick & Hallett, 2013). This essentially implies movement without voluntary signals. This has been further supported by what Schultze-Kraft (2016) term the “point of no return”. The authors study had participants earn points by pressing a button while stop signals were emitted in real-time with their RPs. Data suggested veto of the movement to be possible even after the onset of RP; however, the cancellation was only possible if the signal preceded the movement onset by up to 200msec. A signal later than this and the subject cannot avoid moving, thus the point of no return.
The neuropsychological approach: The influence of affect
It appears possible that the initiation of action is involuntary, subject to physical law, but the free will to inhibit the action is not excluded. Most of us will have experienced vetoing spontaneous urges, usually in socially unacceptable circumstances or even those which will set you back, such as in professional meetings (i.e. the term “biting your tongue”). Most of us will also have experienced being unable to control such actions at times, but why?
Behavioural psychology has already established system 1 (the automatic system) and system 2 (mental effort) of thinking (Kahneman, 2011). Drawing on Kahneman’s example that if asked “2+2” you automatically have the answer without having to process it, but if asked “17×24” you now must exert mental effort. Fatigue will not affect the former but will certainly make the latter more bothersome. A state of low energy for such mental activity is termed ego depletion, drawing upon the same resources as self-control which in turn may affect rational choice and willpower. fMRI study reveals significantly increased left amygdala activity in ego-depleted groups while processing negative emotional scenes, and more specifically a reduced connection between the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Wagner & Heatherton, 2012). This essentially implies exaggerated emotional response and a failure of the top-down prefrontal region in emotional regulation.
Additional to ego depletion, conflict in moral judgement varies with the level of affect elicited by concrete cases. This is consistent with fMRI studies revealing activity in areas implicated in emotional processing–medial frontal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and angular gyrus–to increase significantly during judgements of moral-personal scenarios (Greene et al, 2001). The behavioural data in this study further evidenced emotional interference as implied by the more rapid reaction times for emotionally congruent judgements, unique to the moral-personal condition.
Conclusion
Ordinary life consists of frequent emotionally charged scenarios, ego-depleted selves and situational responses constrained by time. This leaves much opportunity for reliance on unconscious brain processes, causing behaviour to bypass mental life.
Initiation of action may arise automatically, and conscious veto of such impulse is a plausible notion. However, this is evidently an expensive mechanism for which we may have less available resources than we would like to think. Neuropsychology offers legalities and philosophies a reconciliation by scientifically informing of neurocognitive demands, thus a more sophisticated view of free will.
Author
George Evangelou, Middlesex University. Email: geo_16@hotmail.co.uk
Acknowledgements
A thank you to my presentation group who presented this as a final year neuropsychology assignment: Themi Efthimiou, Hasna Hardaf and Saman Ghafoor
References
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105-2108.
Kahneman, D., & Egan, P. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow (Vol. 1). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kranick, S. M., & Hallett, M. (2013). Neurology of volition. Experimental brain research, 229(3), 313-327.
Libet, B., Wright, E.W. and Gleason, C.A. (1982), ‘Readiness potentials preceding unrestricted spontaneous pre-planned voluntary acts’, Electroenceph. & Clin. Neurophysiology, 54, pp. 322–5.
Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential) the unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106(3), 623-642.
Libet, B. (1999). Do we have free will?. Journal of consciousness studies, 6(8-9), 47-57.
Schultze-Kraft, M., Birman, D., Rusconi, M., Allefeld, C., Görgen, K., Dähne, S., … & Haynes, J. D. (2016). The point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(4), 1080-1085.
Roskies, A. (2006). Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(9), 419-423.
Rousseau, J. J. (1762). The social contract (Vol. 1).
Wagner, D. D., & Heatherton, T. F. (2012). Self-regulatory depletion increases emotional reactivity in the amygdala. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 8(4), 410-417.
The Theory of Anything 
Learning may be the link between conscious effort and automatic actions. The toddler is likely to be hyper-conscious of where he places each foot until his walking skills are ingrained in his neuromuscular memory and he’s running around the house. The process repeats with his first pair of roller skates, and again when learning to ride a bike.
In the Libet experiments, the subject must be able to translate the experimenter’s instructions from conscious awareness to unconscious behavior. I think one of them was squeezing the fist 40 times at random intervals in 2 minutes. This suggests having already learned what those words implied in terms of physical action.
In any case, neuroscience may eventually describe to us how free will works. We just need to remember that explaining how an automobile works does not explain the automobile away. It is still us, whether the choice is primarily conscious or unconscious, that is doing the choosing.
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You could argue we essentially consciously train ourselves to carry out further action unconsciously, as a matter of efficiency. This has been shown in the basic 10,000 hours of practice rule to become an expert, allowing your intuition to do what takes others great effort. Some things are innate though (i.e. breathing, crying, eating and other emotional reactions). I believe what you’re referring to however is implicit learning – things you can’t be taught as a matter of instruction, instead must be learned internally. This still implies however that once learned, it is very difficult to unlearn; thus, challenging our sense of agency (free will).
I am afraid this was not mentioned in the study and I am wary that you are fabricating a part of the experiment in order to fulfil your earlier point. Also, the flaw there is that as participants were instructed to flex at whichever time they so wish, they could not have possibly learned it at such specific timing.
I like this possibility and I did generally elude to this: neuroscience appears to demonstrate free will to inhibit (or control) brain processes, however it is a limited resource.
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I was specifically referring to the paper in the 1999 Journal of Consciousness Studies, “Do We Have Free Will”. You cite the same study in your references. I didn’t note the time period in my reading notes, so my 2 minutes was just a guess.
My point was not about the specific study, but rather all such studies in which deliberation does not play a meaningful role. If I’m buying a car, there are many things to consider. But if I’m simply squeezing my fist “randomly” 40 times, it is a different kind of task.
My point was simply that, in preparing any subject for any test, instructions are given, which must be received consciously, and somehow converted by the subject into specific actions. Even if the event is “randomly” generated by the unconscious, prior to conscious awareness, it is preceded by conscious preparation and followed by conscious reporting.
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