Perceived freedom of choice is associated with neural encoding of option availability

Evidence for entropy maximisation in human free choice behaviour

“…Our results further show that in both Experimental tasks, participants not only preferentially chose states with greater choice availability, but reported higher perceived freedom in this context. This is in accordance with previous findings suggesting that the subjective experience of free choice corresponds to the availability of an alternative option (Rens et al, 2018) or the perception of having a higher number of options available (Filevich et al, 2013). We also found that in Experimental task 1 (but not Experimental task 2), comparative reward value positively influenced perceived freedom.…”

“…The flexibility of preparation has been also suggested to be a hallmark of free decisions (Fleming et al, 2009;Salvaris and Haggard, 2014). In keeping, a previous study has shown that, while free choices can be predicted from neural activity, neural encoding of options and visual attention both indicate that alternative options remain online during free choice preparation (Rens et al, 2018). Finally, delaying commitment to a particular outcome may also allow an individual greater time to accrue evidence, particular in dynamic contexts (Bown et al, 2003;Lepora and Pezzulo, 2015;Pezzulo and Ognibene, 2011;Weld, 1994).…”

Decoding Changes of Mind in Voluntary Action—Dynamics of Intentional Choice Representations

“…We derived ROIs from previous studies and confirmed that initial voluntary decisions were encoded in MFC, precuneus, dlPFC and AG (Brass and Haggard 2008;Soon et al 2008;Bode et al 2011;Krieghoff et al 2011;Bode et al 2013;Soon et al 2013;Zapparoli et al 2018). Additionally, decisions could be decoded from visual cortex, presumably due to visual fixation of the chosen image, and attention to visual features of the chosen image (Krajbich et al 2010;Rens et al 2018;Voigt et al 2019). More importantly, we then analysed whether and how neural patterns associated with initial endogenous decisions changed during the integration of exogenous factors as on some trials the locations of the choice options changed, and participants had to re-evaluate their original intention based on new information about costs and rewards associated with pursuing or changing the decision.…”

“…The dlPFC was the only area that encoded both target distance and location, and hence, represented decision-as well as action-relevant information. Previous studies have shown that dlPFC represents alternative choice options (Rens et al 2018), and is involved in rapid value updates of competing choice options (Voigt et al 2019). Here we show that these representations can be used to guide switches to an alternative choice option when values change.…”