PSY 348 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Retina, Visual System, Cognitive Science

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Psychology Main
• Course: PSY 348
• Professor: Theresa Lopez

Document Summary

1960s, kornhuber and deecke studied relation between brain activity and motion. Used emg to measure activity in the relevant muscle. Experimental participants told to flex finger quickly at several points during an experimental session, but the participants chose the specific time that they flexed. Discovered pattern of electrical activity that preceded electrical ativity of the muscle. Brain activity they identified started less than a second before the activity in the muscle, and the brain activity increased gradually over the remainder of this one second. A natural interpretation is that the brain activity reflects the preparation for the voluntary flexing of the finger. Hence, it was called the readiness potential (rp) The brain is getting ready to produce motor behavior. Libet adds a new factor- participants watch a (sped up) clock . The particpants were told to notice where the dot was on the clock when they were first aware of a conscious wanting" or urge" to flex their wrist.