Ezequiel Morsella, Tanaz Molapour, and Margaret T. Lynn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199988341
- eISBN:
- 9780199346295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199988341.003.0018
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This chapter tackles the problem of volition from an inductive (instead of deductive) and descriptive (instead of normative) approach. In this “bottom-up” approach, a distinction is made between the ...
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This chapter tackles the problem of volition from an inductive (instead of deductive) and descriptive (instead of normative) approach. In this “bottom-up” approach, a distinction is made between the high-level properties of human voluntary action and its necessary basic components—the building blocks that are necessary for voluntary action to exist. First reviewed are the documented properties of voluntary processes, including high-level cognitions such as the sense of agency (that is, the sense that the self is responsible for the occurrence of a physical or mental act) and less intuitive properties, including distortions in time perception and the ability to influence that which enters attentional awareness. The chapter then examines how the instantiation of voluntary action rests on three primary components: The phenomenal state (the most basic form of conscious awareness), ideomotor processing (a form of action control), and the skeletal muscle output system (the only effector in the body that is controlled voluntarily). We conclude by discussing how the interdependences among these three components provide a unique insight into the mechanisms of voluntary action and the nature of human agency.Less
This chapter tackles the problem of volition from an inductive (instead of deductive) and descriptive (instead of normative) approach. In this “bottom-up” approach, a distinction is made between the high-level properties of human voluntary action and its necessary basic components—the building blocks that are necessary for voluntary action to exist. First reviewed are the documented properties of voluntary processes, including high-level cognitions such as the sense of agency (that is, the sense that the self is responsible for the occurrence of a physical or mental act) and less intuitive properties, including distortions in time perception and the ability to influence that which enters attentional awareness. The chapter then examines how the instantiation of voluntary action rests on three primary components: The phenomenal state (the most basic form of conscious awareness), ideomotor processing (a form of action control), and the skeletal muscle output system (the only effector in the body that is controlled voluntarily). We conclude by discussing how the interdependences among these three components provide a unique insight into the mechanisms of voluntary action and the nature of human agency.
