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Time to Lay the Libet Experiment to Rest: Commentary on Papanicolaou (2017)

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Time to Lay the Libet Experiment to Rest: Commentary on Papanicolaou (2017) Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice © 2017 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 4, No. 3, 324–329 2326-5523/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cns0000124 COMMENTARY Time to Lay the Libet Experiment to Rest: Commentary on Papanicolaou (2017) John F. Kihlstrom University of California, Berkeley For more than 30 years, “the Libet experiment” has inspired and dominated philosoph- ical and scientific discussions of free will and determinism. Unfortunately, this famous experiment has been compromised by a serious confounding variable (i.e., there has been no control for watching the clock), and the method of data collection ignored conscious mental activity that occurred prior to the decision to act. Because Libet’s results appear to be wholly an artifact of his method, his experiment should be discounted in future discussions of the problem of free will. Keywords: agency, consciousness, free will, Libet experiment, readiness potential For more than 30 years, an experiment by In his experiment, Libet and his colleagues Benjamin Libet, a psychophysiologist interested asked subjects to perform a simple spontaneous in psychoanalytic theory, has inspired and dom- motor activity, flicking a finger or flexing a inated discussions of free will and conscious wrist, while watching a fast-moving clock, and agency. Starting with Libet, Wright, and Glea- to note the time at which they decided to make son (1982), Libet capitalized on an electroen- the movement (Libet, 1985; Libet, Gleason, cephalographic (EEG) signature known as the Wright, & Pearl, 1983; Libet et al., 1982). Ex- readiness potential (RP, or Bereitschaftspoten- amining the EEG data, they observed that the tial in the original German; Kornhuber & RP began approximately 350 ms before subjects Deecke, 1965, 1990), a negative shift in voltage decided to make the movement—which, in turn, which occurs prior to voluntary muscle move- occurred about 200 ms before the movement ments—somewhat in the manner of an event- began. Libet concluded from this predecisional related potential (though recorded before, not negative shift (PNS) that “cerebral initiation of after, the event in question). There is also a a spontaneous voluntary act begins uncon- lateralized readiness potential (LRP), discern- sciously,” although he argued that subjects able in the hemisphere contralateral to the limb could still exercise conscious control, or “veto,” which actually makes the movement (Trevena over “the final decision to act” (Libet, 1985,p. & Miller, 2002). The usual interpretation of 529; see also Libet, 1999). both the RP and LRP is that it they are the As Papanicolaou (2017) showed, Libet’s es- neural correlates of the “planning, preparation, sential findings have been independently repli- and initiation of volitional acts” (Kornhuber & cated in a number of different laboratories. The This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. Deecke, 1990, p. 14) initially appearing in both precise onset of the PNS varies considerably from This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individualhemispheres, user and is not to be disseminated broadly. and then shifting to the hemi- one subject, and one experiment, to another, but sphere contralateral to the limb that will actually the confidence interval around Libet’s average execute the movement. does not include zero, and if anything, his estimate of the onset of the PNS may be too short by a factor of 2 (Trevena & Miller, 2002). It is inter- esting to note, the same EEG signature also occurs Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- before subjects decide not to make a movement dressed to John F. Kihlstrom, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 3210 Tolman Hall, (Trevena & Miller, 2010), so by Libet’s logic, the Mailcode MC 1650, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650. E-mail: beginnings of inaction are unconscious as well. [email protected] Presumably, by extension, the origins of the veto, 324 THE LIBET EXPERIMENT 325 which is the only function Libet allowed for con- 6. Inspired by the Libet experiment, Yuva sciousness, are also unconscious. To paraphrase Harari (2017), author of the acclaimed William James (James, 1882, p. 82), it’s uncon- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind scious all the way down. (Harari, 2015), wrote in his sequel, Homo Libet’s experiment has often been taken as a Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow that challenge to the folk-psychological concept of “The life sciences undermine liberalism, free will. Consider just a few salient examples, arguing that the free individual is just a among dozens, that have invoked the Libet ex- fictional tale concocted by an assembly of periment as evidence for the conclusion that the biochemical algorithms” (p. 293). commonsense notion of free will is incompati- ble with modern science. At the same time, some philosophers and psychologists have raised conceptual and meth- 1. The late Daniel Wegner, a prominent so- odological objections to Libet’s conclusions cial psychologist, used the Libet experi- (Libet, 1985, 1999; Libet et al., 1982, 1983). ment as the springboard to argue that the For example, it has been argued that the task set experience of conscious will was an illu- for Libet’s subjects was utterly trivial, so his sion, that the true causes of action were findings should not be generalized to the real unconscious, and that the reasons we give world of decision, choice, and action. More for our behavior are little more than after- substantively, it was argued that, in Libet’s ex- the-fact rationalizations (Wegner, 2002; periment, the important decision had already for précis and commentary, see Wegner, been made before individual trials began— 2004). namely, the decision to participate in the exper- 2. Michael Gazzaniga (2011), often called iment to begin with. Here, for example, is the the “founding father” of cognitive neuro- philosopher John Searle, writing about the Libet science, and sometime member of the experiment and others like it (Searle, 2013,p. President’s Commission on Bioethics, ar- 55, emphasis original). gued that Libet and other neuroscientists The cases in question are all cases where the subject had solved the problem of free will for has already made up his mind to eventually perform a philosophers—by showing that we do not course of action, and the brain has an increased activity have it. prior to his awareness of a conscious decision to phys- 3. Christof Koch (2012), a prominent neuro- ically perform it; but the presence of the readiness scientist and author of the “Consciousness potential does not constitute a causally sufficient con- dition for the performance of the action. It could be the Redux” column in Scientific American, case that a person would have been inclined to push a concluded that “The brain acts before the button, that the brain then undertook the activity called mind decides! This is a complete reversal readiness potential, and that the person would not push of the deeply held intuition of mental cau- the button. Readiness potential in the brain is not a sation—the brain and the body act only condition that is sufficient to cause the act. It is asso- ciated with the act but does not determine it. after the mind has willed it” (p. 106). 4. Sam Harris (2012), another neuroscientist Papanicolaou (2017) covered most of these and leader of the “New Atheist” move- objections in his review, and there is no need to ment, similarly concluded that our go over that territory again here—except to say thoughts and actions are determined by that Searle’s (2013) criticism turns out to have This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. causes of which we have no conscious been very close to the mark. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. awareness and over which we have no Papanicolaou (2017) also does an excellent conscious control. job detailing the major methodological objec- 5. In 2012, widespread interest in Libet’s tions to the Libet experiment. Libet gave both experiment and similar challenges subjects and experimenters extremely challeng- prompted the John Templeton Foundation ing tasks, with a lot of potential for random and to initiate a grant program on “Finding systematic error to creep in. Subjects have to Free Will,” devoting millions of dollars to pay attention to their own thoughts as well as to the study of the philosophical, theological, a swiftly changing timer—essentially a divided and scientific aspects of the topic (e.g., attention task. Experimenters have to determine Glannon, 2015). precisely when the readiness potential begins to 326 KIHLSTROM rise—in the early 1980s, with polygraphs gen- a ‘decision’ to initiate movement” (p. 77). erating reams of paper records, a challenge for When the activity of this stochastic “neural ac- the eyes. However, the best guess is that these cumulator” crosses a threshold, the “neural de- sources of potential errors probably cancel each cision to move” is made, and the movement is other out (Banks & Pockett, 2007; Pockett, executed roughly 200 ms later. But what is 2004). being accumulated? In the case of externally Unfortunately, Papanicolaou (2017) gives cued movements, it is “sensory evidence” of the short shrift—only a single sentence—to the cue to move; in the case of spontaneous move- most important objection of all to Libet’s ex- ments, as in the RP or the PNS, it is “internal perimental design (Libet, 1985, 1999; Libet et noise”. al., 1982, 1983): It has a fatal methodological To get some sense of what this “internal flaw. For all the various arguments over mea- noise” is all about, we should examine the Libet surement error, Libet’s critics missed an impor- experiment—and, for that matter, the other ex- tant feature of his experiment: Subjects must periments as well—from the subject’s point of keep track of a timer while they’re deciding to view (Orne, 1962, 1969, 1973; see also Kihl- move.
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