TY  - JOUR
VL  - 4
JF  - Front Psychol
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00202
Y1  - 2013/05/06/
ID  - discovery1393906
N1  - © 2013 Filevich and Haggard. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.

PMCID: PMC3644713
TI  - Persistence of internal representations of alternative voluntary actions.
AV  - public
N2  - We have investigated a situation in which externally available response alternatives and their internal representations could be dissociated, by suddenly removing some action alternatives from the response space during the interval between the free selection and the execution of a voluntary action. Choice reaction times in this situation were related to the number of initially available response alternatives, rather than to the number of alternatives available effectively available after the change in the external environment. The internal representations of response alternatives appeared to persist after external changes actually made the corresponding action unavailable. This suggests a surprising dynamics of voluntary action representations: counterfactual response alternatives persist, and may even be actively maintained, even when they are not available in reality. Our results highlight a representational basis for the counterfactual course of action. Such representations may play a key role in feelings of regret, disappointment, or frustration. These feelings all involve persistent representation of counterfactual response alternatives that may not actually be available in the environment.
KW  - Hick?s law
KW  -  free action
KW  -  reselection
KW  -  response selection
KW  -  volition
A1  - Filevich, E
A1  - Haggard, P
ER  -