Voluntary control of unavoidable action

Goal-oriented behavior is usually portrayed to be directly related to incentive values. Underlying mechanisms are thought to include reward-oriented response bias and perceptual sensitivity. A recent electrophysiological study by Minamimoto et al. challenges this view, and reports neural activity in the thalamus that appears to counteract response bias. This type of activity might be crucial for our ability to engage voluntarily in actions that give little or no immediate return, but are necessary in the pursuit of long-term goals.     

Voluntary action influences visual competition

Converging lines of evidence point to a strong link between action and perception. In this study, we show that this linkage plays a role in controlling the dynamics of binocular rivalry, in which two stimuli compete for perceptual awareness. Observers dichoptically viewed two dynamic rival stimuli while moving a computer mouse with one hand. When the motion of one rival stimulus was consistent with observers' own hand movements, dominance durations of that stimulus were extended and, remarkably, suppression durations of that stimulus were abbreviated. Additional measurements revealed that this change in rivalry dynamics was not attributable to observers' knowledge about the condition under test. Thus, self-generated actions can influence the resolution of perceptual conflict, even when the object being controlled falls outside of visual awareness.     

Voluntary action alters the perception of visual illusions

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - “Intentional binding” refers to the finding that people judge voluntary actions and their effects as having occurred closer together in time...     

Erratum to: Voluntary action alters the perception of visual illusions

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics -     

Voluntary Attention Enhances Contrast Appearance

ABSTRACT— Voluntary (endogenous, sustained) covert spatial attention selects relevant sensory information for prioritized processing. The behavioral and neural consequences of such selection have been extensively documented, but its phenomenology has received little empirical investigation. We asked whether voluntary attention affects the subjective appearance of contrast—a fundamental dimension of visual perception. We used a demanding rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task to direct endogenous attention to a given location and measured perceived contrast at the attended and unattended locations. Attention increased perceived contrast of suprathreshold stimuli and also improved performance on a concurrent orientation discrimination task at the cued location. We ruled out response bias as an alternative account of the pattern of results. Thus, this study establishes that voluntary attention enhances perceived contrast. This phenomenological consequence links behavioral and neurophysiological studies on the effects of attention.     

Voluntary saccadic control in dyslexia

The role of eye-movement control in dyslexia is still unclear. Recent studies, however, confirmed that dyslexics show poor saccadic control in single and sequential target tasks. In the present study we investigated whether dyslexic subjects are impaired on an antisaccade task requiring saccades against the direction of a stimulus. Altogether, 620 subjects between the ages of 7 and 17 years were classified as dyslexics (N = 506) or control subjects (N = 114) on the grounds of the discrepancy between their intellectual abilities and reading/spelling achievements. All subjects performed an overlap prosaccade and a gap antisaccade task with 100 trials to each side of stimulation in random order. Variables analysed were the overall saccadic reaction time of both tasks; and from the antisaccade task the number of errors (prosaccades), the number of corrected errors, and the number of trials in which the subjects still failed to reach the side opposite the stimulus even after two saccades. An analysis of variance was carried out taking into account the development of saccadic behaviour with age and the differences between the groups. The results confirm development of saccade control with age, especially in the voluntary component (a frontal-lobe function) for both groups, but indicate that the antisaccade task performance, as measured by the error and the correction rate, is significantly worse in the dyslexic group at ages above 8 years. Up to 50% of the dyslexics performed the antisaccade task 1.5 standard deviations below the mean of the controls.     

A Defence of Voluntary Sterilisation

Res Publica - Many women identify sterilisation as their preferred form of contraception. However, their requests to be sterilised are frequently denied by doctors. Given a commitment to ensuring...     

Voluntary eyeblinks disrupt iconic memory

In the present research, we investigated whether eyeblinks interfere with cognitive processing. In Experiment 1, the participants performed a partial-report iconic memory task in which a letter array was presented for 106 msec, followed 50, 150, or 750 msec later by a tone that cued recall of onerow of the array. At a cue delay of 50 msec between array offset and cue onset, letter report accuracy was lower when the participants blinked following array presentation than under no-blink conditions; the participants made more mislocation errors under blink conditions. This result suggests that blinking interferes with the binding of object identity and object position in iconic memory. Experiment 2 demonstrated that interference due to blinks was not due merely to changes in light intensity. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that other motor responses did not interfere with iconic memory. We propose a new phenomenon, cognitive blink suppression, in which blinking inhibits cognitive processing. This phenomenon may be due to neural interference. Blinks reduce activation in area V1, which may interfere with the representation of information in iconic memory.     

Voluntary response selection in free association

Reaction time (RT) in free association (FA) is assumed to consist of three components: stimulus word encoding, response selection, and response generation. The RT of word naming contains the first and third components only. If response selection is a serial voluntary search it can be manipulated by rewarding response speeding. This would lead the subject to terminate the search sooner. Thus, greater speeding will be achieved for delayed responses, for which search was long, than for undelayed ones. This differential speeding effect was observed in Experriment 1 ( N =17), in which the task was FA. Speeding effect was not differential in Experiment 2, in which the subjects ( N =16) were given a word naming task. Both of these experiments employed a between-subjects design. Their results were replicated in Experiment 3 ( N =13), which employed a within-subject design. The results, taken together, suggest that differential speeding is specific to response selection, in accordance with Flekkoy's (1973 a , 1981) voluntary selection model. However, they are inconsistent with the traditional associonistic models.     

Voluntary intoxication and criminal responsibility.

This paper reviews the law related to voluntary intoxication and criminal responsibility in the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin islands, and Puerto Rico. Statutory and case law citations are provided which govern the use of intoxication evidence in each jurisdiction to negate mens rea (i.e., to establish diminished capacity), to support an insanity defense, and to mitigate criminal sentencing. Factors that courts typically focus on when deciding whether to admit this evidence in a particular case are discussed, and these factors are related to clinically relevant criteria.     

Attitudes Toward Voluntary and Involuntary Childlessness

Prior research has documented negative attitudes toward the voluntarily childless. Although research indicates that infertile couples perceive their condition to be discrediting, the extent to which the public considers involuntary childlessness as a negative attribute is unclear. Infertility might be construed by many to be a disease of professional couples overly concerned with careers or too stressed to conceive. In this experiment, 215 university students read one of six scenarios describing a couple as either: (a) voluntarily childless, involuntarily childless, or having children; or (b) holding professional or nonprofessional employment. Subjects rated each member of the couple on 26 characteristics (e.g., ambitious, caring, and stressed) and responded to 12 items concerning the quality and strength of the couple's relationship. Results support prior research demonstrating a stigma of voluntary childlessness but suggest that involuntary childlessness is not universally stigmatizing and may actually lead to some positive attributions. Recommendations for future research and applications are discussed.     

Voluntary attention and the spacing effect

Three experiments were done to test the hypothesis that the spacing effect results from a voluntary decision by the subject to pay little attention to the second presentation (P₂) of an item when it occurs shortly after the first (P¹)- In all three experiments, the spacing of repetitions was varied. In Experiment I, allocation of attention was manipulated by pairing P₂ of some pictures with a signal that indicated high payoff for later retention. In Experiment II, attention was controlled more directly by requiring the subject, in one condition, to recite words aloud. In both experiments, the dependent variable was judged frequency. In neither experiment did the effect of the attention manipulation interact with that of the spacing of repetitions. In Experiment III, the number of eye fixations given a picture was taken to be a measure of attention. The number of fixations dropped from P₁ to P₂ to P₃, but was unaffected by the spacing of repetitions. The experiments provide no support for a voluntary attention explanation of the spacing effect.