Flipping a coin in your head without monitoring outcomes? Comments on predicting free choices and a demo program

Frontiers in Psychology

Martin Lages¹ 

关键词: free will controversy;    sequential dependencies;    multivariate pattern analysis;    free choice;    prediction;    searchlight;    frontopolar cortex;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00925

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In a recent study Soon et al. (2013) predicted abstract intentions from fMRI BOLD activities in localized areas of the brain. Activities in a spherical cluster of voxels served as input to a multivariate pattern classifier (linear SVM). The accuracy for predicting the intention to add or subtract two numbers was determined for clusters centered on different voxels. A prediction accuracy of 60% averaged across participants and based on 10-fold cross-validation was achieved for patterns of voxel activities in the medial frontopolar cortex and precuneus up to 4 s before participants reported being consciously aware of their decision. The prediction accuracy in this study was similar to studies on predicting spontaneous left or right motor decisions (Soon et al., 2008; Bode et al., 2011). Since the task demands placed on the participants create similar methodological issues as in previous studies (Lages and Jaworska, 2012), it seems possible that the multivariate classifier picked up sequential information processing between trials (Bode et al., 2012).

【 授权许可】

CC BY