Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.

2 February 2003 65

The mind’s best trick:

how we experience conscious will
Daniel M. Wegner
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1470 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

We often consciously will our own actions. This begin to explain all the odd cases when action and
experience is so profound that it tempts us to conscious will do not properly coincide.
believe that our actions are caused by conscious-
ness. It could also be a trick, however – the mind’s Neuropsychology
way of estimating its own apparent authorship by We might understand, for example, Penfield’s classic
drawing causal inferences about relationships finding on movements induced through electrical stimu-
between thoughts and actions. Cognitive, social, lation of the motor cortex [1]. Conscious patients were
and neuropsychological studies of apparent mental prompted by stimulation of the exposed brain to produce
causation suggest that experiences of conscious movements that were not simple reflexes and instead
will frequently depart from actual causal processes appeared to be complex, multi-staged, and voluntary. Yet,
and so might not reflect direct perceptions of con- their common report of the experience was that they did
scious thought causing action. not ‘do’ the action, and instead felt that Penfield had
‘pulled it out’ of them. This observation only makes sense if
Does consciousness cause action? Many people think that the experience of will is an addition to voluntary action,
even asking this question is absurd. How could conscious- not a cause of it.
ness not cause what we do? Every few moments of every The possibility that conscious will is an illusion
day, we think about doing something and then do it. We might also explain the finding that unperceived causes
think of moving a finger and then do it, we think of going to of action can fail to influence the experience of will [2].
the store for milk and do it, we think of looking away from People in one study, for instance, were asked to choose
this page – and then do it. It certainly doesn’t take a rocket to move one or the other index finger whenever they
scientist to draw the obvious conclusion from a lifelong heard a click [3]. Transcranial magnetic stimulation
accumulation of such examples: consciousness is an active (TMS) was applied alternately to the left or right motor
force, an engine of will. cortex to influence the movement, and this influence
The mind has been known to play tricks, though. over which finger was moved was strong at short
Could this be one? What if our minds keep showing us response times. Respondents reported consciously will-
the same set of appearances, leading to an impression ing the movements during the TMS influence, although
of conscious will again and again, but never revealing showing a lack of insight into the alternative causal
to us how our actions are actually caused? One way mechanism producing their actions. Similar inferences
this could happen is if both the thought about action can be drawn from Gazzaniga’s observations of split-
and the action itself are caused by unperceived forces brain patients who are induced to perform an action
of mind: you think of doing X and then do X – not through communication to the right hemisphere when
because conscious thinking causes doing, but because the major verbal centers of the left hemisphere are
other mental processes (that are not consciously unaware of the action’s cause [4]. Such patients
perceived) cause both the thinking and the doing. confabulate ‘left brain interpretations’ of their inten-
Based on your conscious perceptions of your thoughts tions, apparently to satisfy the general assumption
and actions, it would be impossible to tell in any given that their actions are consciously willed.
case whether your thought was causing your action, or The celebrated experiments of Benjamin Libet
something else was causing both of them. Could it be provide further evidence that conscious will can be
that the deep intuition we all have about the power of experienced that does not correspond to causation [5].
our conscious will is the result of this ‘sleight of mind’? In spontaneous, intentional finger movement, Libet
Perhaps we experience conscious will when we infer found that a scalp-recorded brain readiness potential
that our thought causes our action, although we can’t (RP) preceded the movement (measured electromyo-
really know that this is the causal path (see Fig. 1). graphically) by a minimum of , 550 ms. This finding
indicates only that some sort of brain activity reliably
Anomalies of will precedes the onset of voluntary action. However,
If conscious will were an illusory add-on to action, we could participants were also asked to recall the position of
a clock at their initial awareness of intending to move
Corresponding author: Daniel M. Wegner ([email protected]). their finger, and this awareness followed the RP by
http://tics.trends.com 1364-6613/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00002-0
66 Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.2 February 2003

Experience of conscious will

Thought Apparent causal path Action

th
pa
al
us
ca
al
tu

Unconscious
Ac

cause of
thought

th
pa
al
us
ca
Unconscious

al
tu
Ac
path

Unconscious
cause of
action
TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

Fig. 1. The experience of conscious will arises when the person infers an apparent causal path from thought to action (purple arrow). The actual causal paths (green) are
not present in the person’s consciousness. The thought is caused by unconscious mental events, and the action is caused by unconscious mental events, and these uncon-
scious mental events might also be linked to each other directly or through yet other mental or brain processes. Conscious will is experienced as a result of what is appar-
ent, not what is real. Modified with permission from Ref. [22].

some 350 – 400 ms. So, although the conscious intention Automatisms
preceded the finger movement, it occurred well after Will is also experienced independently of action in a
whatever brain events were signaled by the RP. This menagerie of cases known as automatisms [15 – 19].
finding suggests that the experience of consciously Practices such as automatic writing, table turning,
willing an action begins after brain events that set the Ouija-board spelling, dowsing, pendulum divining, chan-
action into motion [6,7]. The brain creates both the neling, and the like were the major psychological basis of
thought and the action, leaving the person to infer that the Spiritualist fad of the late 19th century, as these
the thought is causing the action. various contrivances gave rise to experiences of unwilled
action that were then attributed to spirits or other
Clinical evidence supernatural agents. In the case of table turning, for
Anomalies pointing to a system that fabricates an instance, a group of people gathered around a light table
experience of will can also be found in clinical cases. and waited for it to move (Fig. 2). Often it would – after a
Patients with brain damage resulting in ‘alien hand significant wait – sometimes even circling the room or
syndrome’, for example, report that one of their hands rocking from side to side. Yet the participants often
functions with a mind of its own, often performing reported no experience of willing the action and instead
elaborate and seemingly voluntary actions without the expressed amazement at the table’s animation. Although
patient’s experience of willful control. One patient spirit agency was the popular explanation, investigations
described the experience as a feeling that ‘someone from by scientists such as Michael Faraday (using force
the moon’ was controlling her hand [8]. Schizophrenia measurement devices between hands and tables) revealed
accompanied by auditory hallucinations also produces that the source of the table movement was indeed the
anomalistic will – in this case, an experience of ‘hearing participants [20,21]. The experience of will in such cases
voices’ that occurs when patients attribute their own was entirely misleading about the causal basis of the
thoughts and inner voice to others [9 – 14]. Thoughts that action.
come to mind without prior anticipation are not experi-
enced as willed, and their insistent recurrence can lead Apparent mental causation
patients to ascribe them to outside agents. If the experience of conscious will is not a direct report
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 Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.2 February 2003 67

feeling of conscious will for the action. If we thought of

turning on the light only after the action, the lack of
appropriate priority could also yield little sense of will
for the action. And if we saw someone’s hand on a
parallel switch at the other door to the room, we might
be inclined to feel less conscious will for the light’s
turning on even if we had thought of doing it just in
advance of our own movement.

Illusory will
Imagine for a moment that a consistent thought occurs
before an action, and that the thought is not accom-
panied by any other potential causes of action – but
that it does not cause the action. One might still
perceive it as causal nonetheless. On thinking of the
light switching on just before it actually comes on by
another cause, for example, one might have the
distinct but erroneous impression that one had caused
it. The principles of causal inference do not describe
actual causal relations, then, because the perceptions
of causality that derive from the principles can depart
from reality [29]. When inferences diverge from actual
causal sequences, the experience of conscious will goes
awry, leaving the person to experience authorship of
actions that could not have been theirs, or that may
Fig. 2. Parisians in 1853 test the automatic (i.e. unwilled) turning of a piano stool.
This kind of practice was part of the Spiritualist fad in the 19th century. Repro- not even have occurred – or on the other hand to
duced from Ref. [21]. experience no authorship even when the action is
demonstrably linked to the person [30]. Departures
from veridical perceptions of causality can be traced to
of the processes whereby action is produced, what is it? each of the principles.
The likely sources of the experience of conscious will The consistency principle, for example, suggests the
are the topic of the ‘theory of apparent mental general proposition that people will feel more will for
causation’ [19,22]. success than failure. After all, people more often envision
success of a task than failure, so when success occurs, the
Principles consistency between the prior thought and the observed
This theory suggests that conscious will is experienced action produces an experience of will. Such effects have
when we draw the inference that our thought has caused been observed in studies of the perceived contingency
our action – whether or not this inference is correct. The between actions and outcomes. People perceive that they
inference occurs in accordance with principles that follow controlled a chance event when they receive a large
from research on cause perception and attribution [23– 27] number of initial successes in predicting that event [31].
– principles of priority, consistency, and exclusivity. When The perception that one is causing a successful outcome is
a thought appears in consciousness just before an action enhanced merely by the increased frequency of that
(priority), is consistent with the action (consistency), and is outcome [32]. This also makes sense of the fact that
not accompanied by conspicuous alternative causes of the depressed individuals – who think less often of success –
action (exclusivity), we experience conscious will and are not as likely as others to over-perceive control of
ascribe authorship to ourselves for the action. In essence, successful outcomes [33].
we experience ourselves as agents who consciously cause The priority principle carries with it further impli-
our actions when our minds provide us with timely cations for the experience of will. It suggests, for
previews of actions that turn out to be accurate when we instance, that people will think they have caused
observe the actions that ensue. Elements of this theory can actions when a thought relevant to the action is primed
be traced to David Hume, and can be understood as an just before the action – whether they actually per-
application of his general analysis of the perception of formed the action or not. People in one experiment
causality [28]. were presented with thoughts (e.g. a tape-recorded
In commonplace actions, we often have thoughts of mention of the word swan) relevant to their action
action that are consistent, prior, and exclusive. We (moving an onscreen cursor to select a picture of a
think of turning on a light before doing so, for example, swan) [22]. The movement that participants performed
and nothing else seems to be causing the light to go on, was not in fact their own, as they shared the computer
so when it happens we conclude that we did it. If we mouse with an experimental confederate who gently
were not thinking of turning on the light and found forced the action without the participants’ knowledge.
ourselves flipping the switch, the lack of consistency (On other trials, the effect of the thought on the
between our thought and action might undermine the participant’s own action was found to be nil when the
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68 Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.2 February 2003

action was not forced.) Nevertheless, when the relevant Conclusions

thought was provided either 1 s or 5 s before the Does all this mean that conscious thought does not cause
action, participants reported feeling that they acted action? It does not mean this at all. The task of
intentionally in making the movement. The influence determining the causal relations between conscious
of priority was shown to be present because, on trials representations and actions is a matter of inspection
when thoughts of the swan were prompted 30 s before through scientific inquiry, and reliable connections
the forced action or 1 s afterwards, no inflated experi- between conscious thought and action can potentially be
ence of will was found. Even when the thought of the discerned by this process [37]. The point made here is that
action is wholly external – as in this case, presented the mind’s own system for computing these relations
over headphones – its timely appearance before the provides the person with an experience of conscious will
action led to an enhanced experience of apparent that is no more than a rough-and-ready guide to such
mental causation. causation, one that can be misled by any number of
The exclusivity principle governs cases when percep- circumstances that render invalid inferences (see also
tions of forces outside the self undermine the experi- Box 1). We should be surprised, after all, if cognitive
ence of will. The presence of other actors who could creatures with our demonstrably fallible self-insight were
contribute to the action, for instance, creates circum- capable of perceiving the deepest mechanisms of our own
stances in which people can fail to sense willful control minds [38,39]. The experience of conscious will is a
of their actions. In the case of hypnosis, the experience marvelous trick of the mind, one that yields useful
of performing suggested actions gives many suscep- intuitions about our authorship – but it is not the
tible individuals strong impressions of involuntariness foundation for an explanatory system that stands outside
despite their obvious involvement in acting [34]. the paths of deterministic causation.
Stanley Milgram explained his famous finding, that
people will obey a command to shock another person, Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to John Bargh, Celeste Beck and Jonathan Schooler for
in terms of such a mechanism, suggesting that an
helpful comments on an earlier draft. Some of the research described here
‘agentic shift’ and an accompanying reduction in was supported by NIMH Grant 49127.
conscious will occur when actions are done at the
behest of another [35]. References
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