Brain Scans Can Reveal Your Decisions 7 Seconds Before You Decide

Last Updated on Wed, 18 Oct 2023 | Curious Minds

In a kind of spooky experiment, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal that our decisions are made seconds before we become aware of them.

In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their right or left hand.

The only condition was that they had to remember when they made the decision to either use their right hand or left hand.

Using fMRI, researchers would scan the brains of the participants while all of this was going on in order to find out if they could in fact predict which hand the participants would use BEFORE they were consciously aware of the decision.

The Results

By monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex, the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose 7 SECONDS before the participant was aware of the decision.

“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.

I don’t even know where to begin here! I know from the hypnosis research that the unconscious pretty much controls everything and that consciousness is extremely limited.

But, I do find it a bit disconcerting that decisions are made by unconscious me 7 seconds before conscious me…

I am not the only one.

Watch Marcus Du Sautoy (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford) go through the study himself. The 7 second delay is in full effect.

Marcus is really disturbed here and brings up the subject of free will. Does this mean we really do NOT have free will? I am really curious what you think about this, please comment below.

Continue reading here: The Key to Life Success – Wait for Two Marshmallows?

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Readers' Questions

  • agnes
    Have studies showing you can detect brain decisions seconds before been replicated?
    3 months ago
    • Yes, there have been several studies that have shown the ability to detect brain decisions seconds before they can be consciously replicated or reported by the individual. One notable study in this area is the Libet experiment. In the Libet experiment, participants were asked to spontaneously flex their wrists while researchers recorded their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were instructed to note the position of a rapidly rotating spot on a clock at the moment they became aware of their decision to flex their wrist. The results of the study showed that brain activity associated with the initiation of the wrist flexion began approximately 550 milliseconds before participants reported being aware of their decision. This suggested that the unconscious brain activity related to the decision was initiated before the conscious awareness of the decision. Similar studies have been conducted using other methods to measure brain activity, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and single-neuron recordings. These studies consistently support the idea that there is a unconscious preparatory brain activity that occurs before conscious awareness. It is important to note that these studies primarily focus on simple motor decisions and may not apply to complex decisions or higher cognitive processes. Nonetheless, they provide evidence that there can be a detectable neural activity related to a decision occurring before it reaches conscious awareness.
    • rhea
      Can they know our dexcinions 7 seconds before we make them?
      6 months ago
      • There is no scientific evidence or established theory suggesting that anyone or anything can accurately predict our decisions 7 seconds before we make them. While some studies have shown that brain activity related to decision-making can be detected and recorded in advance, it is still uncertain whether this activity can accurately predict specific decisions. Our decisions are influenced by numerous factors and can often be spontaneous or influenced by new information in the moment.
      • alessio
        Does our mind decide before we do experiment?
        8 months ago
        • It is possible that our minds can make decisions before we do an experiment. Depending on the situation and the information available, we may have subconsciously made a decision before we actually perform the experiment. In some cases, we may also have consciously made a decision based on prior knowledge or assumptions about the outcome of the experiment.