PPIG: Philosophy, Psychology, and Informatics Group

Speaker: Paulius Rimkevičius (Postdoctoral Researcher, Chapman University)

Title: The Experience of Deciding and its Neurral Correlates

Abstract: What do we experience at the time of deciding? Two main answers have been considered in the literature. According to the first answer, we become aware of our decisions only after deciding and indirectly, by inferring them from external sensory cues. In support of this answer, there is evidence that our decisions can be predicted from neural signals before we become aware of those decisions. There is also evidence that we can be misled about our decisions by misleading external cues, such as delayed visual feedback. According to the second answer, we are aware of our decisions at the time of deciding and directly, as part of our conscious experience. In support of this answer, one can point to an alternative interpretation of the preceding neural signals. According to this interpretation, those neural signals reflect not the decision itself, but merely activity leading up to it (which might largely consist in random neural fluctuations). One can also point out that we are misled about our decisions only some of the time, perhaps only when we are somehow prompted to infer rather than introspect. In this talk, I will argue for a third answer. According to the third answer, we can become aware of our decisions at the time of deciding but only indirectly, by inferring them from internal sensory cues, such as bodily sensations, emotions, and mental imagery. I will present behavioral and neural evidence from our recent study that supports this third answer.