Your Brain May Not Experience Free Will the Way You Think
· Vice
According to a recent study published in Imaging Neuroscience and summarized by The Conversation, the line between choice and decisions you are forced to make may be thinner and less spontaneous than it feels.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne set out to test the basic assumption that choosing your own free will is fundamentally different from being forced into a decision, which is roughly defined as taking the only option available in a situation. We like to think these are distinct choices, each with its own distinct feeling, one personal and the other impersonal. It turns out, according to neuroscience, there really is no distinction between the two.
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Using EEG scans, the team monitored the brain activity of 49 participants as they made simple choices about selecting colored balloons. Sometimes they were told they could choose a preferred balloon from a variety of options. Other times, they were only given one option. In both cases, the participants pressed a button the moment they made a decision, which led researchers to track their brain activity leading up to that choice.
Scientists Say Our Brains May Treat Free Will and Forced Choices Similarly
You’d assume that their brains would light up with something akin to satisfaction when they made a choice entirely on their own after being given a wide variety of options. It wasn’t really the case. In both scenarios, brain activity showed a steady buildup of neural signals, almost like a loading bar, until it reached a certain point at which a decision was made. Choices of free will and choice forced upon you look the same according to a brain scan, the only difference being how quickly the choice was made.
This aligns with something neuroscientists call the Diffusion Decision Model. This is when the brain gathers evidence for different options before it until it has enough to commit to a choice. All of our personal preferences that go into that choice were just little bits of evidence informing the process.
None of this means that free will is an illusion, man. It just means that what feels like a spontaneous decision is more like the result of a lot more mental processing than it seems. Your brain isn’t necessarily reacting spontaneously. It’s weighing its options and arriving at conclusions after careful consideration, even if that final decision happens instantly.
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