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Neuroimaging

Free will?

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 9, pages 410–411 (2008)Cite this article

Volunteers were placed in a functional MRI scanner and were asked to press a button with either their left or their right index finger whenever they wanted to. Throughout the experiment the volunteers watched a screen that showed a succession of letters, and they had to remember the letter that was presented on the screen at the moment they made the decision which button to press. This revealed that most of the decisions were consciously formed 1 second before the motor response was executed.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Soon, C. S. et al. Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neurosci. 11, 543–545 (2008)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Haynes, J. -D. & Rees, G. Decoding mental states from brain activity in humans. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 7, 523–534 (2006)

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Authors
  1. Leonie Welberg
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Welberg, L. Free will?. Nat Rev Neurosci 9, 410–411 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2404

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2404

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