On Volition

-David Ingvar

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1)      Will is defined as the common experience that one can produce inner concrete or abstract goals for one’s future behaviour and/or cognition.

2)      Three components of will:

a.       there is an awareness  of the necessity to achieve a future goal.

                                                               i.      This level takes a certain time, the person may not even be aware that they are starting to plan for this action. 350ms before conscious awareness, there is activation.

                                                             ii.      Activation began 550msec before execution overall.

                                                            iii.      This preparation stage may not be directly before the act, it could be  a rehearsal for something to occurs years in the future.

1.       The memorized motor acts will be retained in ‘memory of the future’ or ‘prospective memory’

2.       They can be continually rehearsed and optimized over time.

a.       Does this preparation stage provide the simulator with a procedural memory of the act. If the simulation does not use  the same neural correlates, then how can production of this simulation provide feedback about how a person is going to produce this motion in the real world.

                                                                                                                                       i.      This seems to disagree with the aspect of embodiment that says off-line cognition is body-based. If the same neural correlates, those of the premotor cortex, are not utilized, how is one able to make inferences based on how the body will achieve this act in the real environment.

b.      includes the performace of the actual willed act, such as a movement, a behavioural reaction, verbal response, or a cognitive change, all carried out in accordance with the primary action plan formulated in step 1.

c.       follows the achievement of the goal of the willed act. This final step is accompanied by a dissolution of the inner representation of the completed act and an emotion response.

3)      The planning of acts uses the frontal/prefrontal region (DLPFC[planning and regulating the simulation process]), whereas execution of the acts uses the premotor cortex. However, this seems to disagree with mirror neuron studies that say that when we perceive or imagine an act, we are using the same neural substrates that we use when actually performing that act.

4)      Silent speech verse overt speech has a distinct neural activation. Overt speech uses the periolandic and upper temporal regions without prefrontal activation. The feedback comes from the auditory sounds and the muscle use, whereas in the silent version, the memorized motor program and visualized number line provides the feedback, this happens mostly in the prefrontal region.

5)      When the area that is used for planning is damaged, the prefrontal region, patients show disorders like schizophrenia, which is a disorder of a volitional will.

6)      ‘Willed acts concern the future. They include a program or an inner concept of how to reach a specific goal. Goals of this type are retained as ‘memories of the future’ which constitue an inherent component of consciousness.

a.       Planning acts inherently codes a temporality in the mental state of a human. This planning mechanism may provide some kind of temporal grounding for perception.

                                                               i.      This would be the sequentiality and aspectuality aspect of time schemas. One would think about the cause and effect of a given action in time.