This document describes various supplementary analyses and model specifications;This R-script con... more This document describes various supplementary analyses and model specifications;This R-script contains code necessary to run all main and supplementary analyses of our study;This file contains the data necessary to run the main analyses;This file contains the data necessary to run the supplementary analyses
How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to whic... more How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence and (ii) when they had just made an action, than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting an intention was maximal when cues were triggered in the presence of a readiness potential, and when participants also executed an action shortly afterwards. Our results provide a first systematic investigation of how prospective and retrospective components are integrated in forming a conscious intention to move.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2020
How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to whic... more How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence, and (ii) when they had just made an action than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting...
The ability to build and expertly manipulate manual tools sets humans apart from other animals. W... more The ability to build and expertly manipulate manual tools sets humans apart from other animals. Watching images of manual tools has been shown to elicit a distinct pattern of neural activity in a network of parietal areas, assumingly because tools entail a potential for actionda unique feature related to their functional use and not shared with other manipulable objects. However, a question has been raised whether this selectivity reflects a processing of low-level visual propertiesdsuch as elongated shape that is idiosyncratic to most tool-objectsdrather than action-specific features. To address this question, we created and behaviourally validated a stimulus set that dissociates objects that are manipulable and nonmanipulable, as well as objects with different degrees of body extension property (tools and non-tools), while controlling for object shape and low-level image properties. We tested the encoding of action-related features by investigating neural representations in two parietal regions of interest (intraparietal sulcus and superior parietal lobule) using functional MRI. Univariate differences between tools and non-tools were not observed when controlling for visual properties, but strong evidence for the action account was nevertheless revealed when using a multivariate approach. Overall, this study provides further evidence that the representational content in the dorsal visual stream reflects encoding of action-specific properties.
Spontaneous, voluntary actions are often accompanied by motor intentions, that is the experience ... more Spontaneous, voluntary actions are often accompanied by motor intentions, that is the experience of "being about to move". The emergence of this experience is contentiously discussed, culminating in two opposing views of motor intention. While prospective theorists hold that an intention to move genuinely precedes the action, retrospective theorists suggest that an intention is reconstructed only after action execution. As such, both theories offer radically different predictions about the possibility of voluntary control over action intention. We assess here the respective contributions of prospective and retrospective factors in motor intention awareness in a real-time EEG setup. Participants performed self-paced movements with intermittent interruption by cues, signalling to either move or not to move. Cues were triggered by a brain-computer interface upon detection of either the presence or absence of a readiness potential (RP), a signal known to precede self-paced vol...
Hypothesis tests for which the null hypothesis cannot be rejected ("null findings") are often see... more Hypothesis tests for which the null hypothesis cannot be rejected ("null findings") are often seen as negative outcomes in psychology. Null findings can, however, bear important insights about the validity of theories and hypotheses. In addition, the tendency to publish mainly significant findings is considered a key reason for failures to replicate previous studies in various fields, including psychology. In this editorial, we discuss the relevance of non-significant results in psychological research and ways to render these results more informative. We discuss the possibility to test whether null findings provide evidence for the absence or negligible size of an effect, based both on frequentist and Bayesian statistical methods. We further discuss the role of adequate power analysis in obtaining informative evidence for null findings, with a special emphasis on student research. Lastly, we encourage researchers at all career stages to submit null findings for publication.
This document describes various supplementary analyses and model specifications;This R-script con... more This document describes various supplementary analyses and model specifications;This R-script contains code necessary to run all main and supplementary analyses of our study;This file contains the data necessary to run the main analyses;This file contains the data necessary to run the supplementary analyses
How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to whic... more How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence and (ii) when they had just made an action, than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting an intention was maximal when cues were triggered in the presence of a readiness potential, and when participants also executed an action shortly afterwards. Our results provide a first systematic investigation of how prospective and retrospective components are integrated in forming a conscious intention to move.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2020
How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to whic... more How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence, and (ii) when they had just made an action than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting...
The ability to build and expertly manipulate manual tools sets humans apart from other animals. W... more The ability to build and expertly manipulate manual tools sets humans apart from other animals. Watching images of manual tools has been shown to elicit a distinct pattern of neural activity in a network of parietal areas, assumingly because tools entail a potential for actionda unique feature related to their functional use and not shared with other manipulable objects. However, a question has been raised whether this selectivity reflects a processing of low-level visual propertiesdsuch as elongated shape that is idiosyncratic to most tool-objectsdrather than action-specific features. To address this question, we created and behaviourally validated a stimulus set that dissociates objects that are manipulable and nonmanipulable, as well as objects with different degrees of body extension property (tools and non-tools), while controlling for object shape and low-level image properties. We tested the encoding of action-related features by investigating neural representations in two parietal regions of interest (intraparietal sulcus and superior parietal lobule) using functional MRI. Univariate differences between tools and non-tools were not observed when controlling for visual properties, but strong evidence for the action account was nevertheless revealed when using a multivariate approach. Overall, this study provides further evidence that the representational content in the dorsal visual stream reflects encoding of action-specific properties.
Spontaneous, voluntary actions are often accompanied by motor intentions, that is the experience ... more Spontaneous, voluntary actions are often accompanied by motor intentions, that is the experience of "being about to move". The emergence of this experience is contentiously discussed, culminating in two opposing views of motor intention. While prospective theorists hold that an intention to move genuinely precedes the action, retrospective theorists suggest that an intention is reconstructed only after action execution. As such, both theories offer radically different predictions about the possibility of voluntary control over action intention. We assess here the respective contributions of prospective and retrospective factors in motor intention awareness in a real-time EEG setup. Participants performed self-paced movements with intermittent interruption by cues, signalling to either move or not to move. Cues were triggered by a brain-computer interface upon detection of either the presence or absence of a readiness potential (RP), a signal known to precede self-paced vol...
Hypothesis tests for which the null hypothesis cannot be rejected ("null findings") are often see... more Hypothesis tests for which the null hypothesis cannot be rejected ("null findings") are often seen as negative outcomes in psychology. Null findings can, however, bear important insights about the validity of theories and hypotheses. In addition, the tendency to publish mainly significant findings is considered a key reason for failures to replicate previous studies in various fields, including psychology. In this editorial, we discuss the relevance of non-significant results in psychological research and ways to render these results more informative. We discuss the possibility to test whether null findings provide evidence for the absence or negligible size of an effect, based both on frequentist and Bayesian statistical methods. We further discuss the role of adequate power analysis in obtaining informative evidence for null findings, with a special emphasis on student research. Lastly, we encourage researchers at all career stages to submit null findings for publication.
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