In this thesis, I will defend a new kind of compatibilist account of free action, indirect conscious control compatibilism (or indirect compatibilism for short), and argue that some of our actions are free according to it. My argument has three components, and involves the development of a brand new tool for experimental philosophy, and the use of cognitive neuroscience. The first component of the argument shows that compatibilism (of some kind) is a conceptual truth. Contrary to the current orthodoxy in (...) the free will literature, which is that our concept of free will is an incompatibilist concept - a concept according to which we have free will only if determinism is false - I will show that our concept of free will is in fact a compatibilist concept - a concept according to which we can have free will even if determinism is true - and I do so using a new experimental philosophy methodology inspired by two-dimensional semantics. -/- Of course, even if our concept of free will is a compatibilist concept, this does not mean that there are any free actions in the world: the current empirical evidence from the brain sciences appears to show that there might be no, or very few, free actions in the world, even on many compatibilist understandings of what it would take for there to be free will. The second component of the argument addresses this concern by extending our understanding of compatibilism. Agents act freely either when their actions are caused by compatibilistically acceptable psychological processes, or are indirectly caused by those same processes. Hence the name of my account: indirect compatibilism. -/- The final component of the argument defends my new account against some interesting objections and provides evidence from cognitive neuroscience that some of our actions count as free by the lights of indirect compatibilism. (shrink)

Evolutionary Psychology (EP) tends to be associated with a Massively Modular (MM) cognitive architecture. I argue that EP favors a non-MM cognitive architecture. The main point of dispute is whether central cognition, such as abstract reasoning, exhibits domain-general properties. Partisans of EP argue that domain-specific modules govern central cognition, for it is unclear how the cognitive mind could have evolved domain-generality. In response, I defend a distinction between exogenous and endogenous selection pressures, according to which exogenous pressures tend to select (...) for domain-specificity, whereas the latter, endogenous pressures, select in favor of domain-generality. I draw on models from brain network theory to motivate this distinction, and also to establish that a domain-general, non-MM cognitive architecture is the more parsimonious adaptive solution to endogenous pressures. (shrink)

According to the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, consciousness results from the global broadcast of information throughout the brain. The global neuronal workspace is mainly constituted by a fronto-parietal network. The anterior insular cortex is part of this global neuronal workspace, but the function of this region has not yet been defined within the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness. In this review, I hypothesize that the anterior insular cortex implements a cross-modal priority map, the function of which is (...) to determine priorities for the processing of information and subsequent entrance in the global neuronal workspace. (shrink)

Decision-making has traditionally been modelled as a serial process, consisting of a number of distinct stages. The traditional account assumes that an agent first acquires the necessary perceptual evidence, by constructing a detailed inner repre- sentation of the environment, in order to deliberate over a set of possible options. Next, the agent considers her goals and beliefs, and subsequently commits to the best possible course of action. This process then repeats once the agent has learned from the consequences of her (...) actions and subsequently updated her beliefs. Under this interpretation, the agent’s body is considered merely as a means to report the decision, or to acquire the relevant goods. However, embodied cognition argues that an agent’s body should be understood as a proper part of the decision-making pro- cess. Accepting this principle challenges a number of commonly held beliefs in the cognitive sciences, but may lead to a more unified account of decision-making. This thesis explores an embodied account of decision-making using a recent frame- work known as predictive processing. This framework has been proposed by some as a functional description of neural activity. However, if it is approached from an embodied perspective, it can also offer a novel account of decision-making that ex- tends the scope of our explanatory considerations out beyond the brain and the body. We explore work in the cognitive sciences that supports this view, and argue that decision theory can benefit from adopting an embodied and predictive perspective. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology tends to be associated with a massively modular cognitive architecture. On this framework of human cognition, an assembly of specialized information processors called modules developed under selection pressures encountered throughout the phylogenic history of hominids. The coordinated activity of domain-specific modules carries out all the processes of belief fixation, abstract reasoning, and other facets of central cognition. Against the massive modularity thesis, I defend an account of systemic functional adaptedness, according to which non-modular systems emerged because of adaptive (...) problems imposed by the intrinsic physiology of the evolving human brain. The proposed reformulation of evolutionary theorizing draws from neural network models and Cummins’ (1975) account of systemic functions to identify selection pressures that gave rise to non-modular, domain-general mechanisms in cognitive architecture. (shrink)

A cognitivist account of decision-making views choice behaviour as a serial process of deliberation and commitment, which is separate from perception and action. By contrast, recent work in embodied decision-making has argued that this account is incompatible with emerging neurophysiological data. We argue that this account has significant overlap with an embodied account of predictive processing, and that both can offer mutual development for the other. However, more importantly, by demonstrating this close connection we uncover an alternative perspective on the (...) nature of decision-making, and the mechanisms that underlie our choice behaviour. This alternative perspective allows us to respond to a challenge for predictive processing, which claims that the satisfaction of distal goal-states is underspecified. Answering this challenge requires the adoption of an embodied perspective. (shrink)

By the late 1990s, several converging trends in economics, psychology, and neuroscience had set the stage for the birth of a new scientific field known as “neuroeconomics”. Without the availability of an extensive variety of experimental designs for dealing with individual and social decision-making provided by experimental economics and psychology, many neuroeconomics studies could not have been developed. At the same time, without the significant progress made in neuroscience for grasping and understanding brain functioning, neuroeconomics would have never seen the (...) light of day. The paper is an overview of the main significant advances in the knowledge of brain functioning by neuroscience that have contributed to the emergence of neuroeconomics and its rise over the past two decades. These advances are grouped over three non-independent topics referred to as the “emo-rational” brain, “social” brain, and “computational” brain. For each topic, it emphasizes findings considered as critical to the birth and development of neuroeconomics while highlighting some of prominent questions about which knowledge should be improved by future research. In parallel, it shows that the boundaries between neuroeconomics and several recent sub-fields of cognitive neuroscience, such as affective, social, and more generally, decision neuroscience, are rather porous. (shrink)

We investigated if emotion regulation can be improved through self-regulation training on non-emotional brain regions, as well as how to change the brain networks implicated in this process. During the training period, the participants were instructed to up-regulate their right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity according to real-time functional near-infrared spectroscopy neurofeedback signals, and there was no emotional element. The results showed that the training significantly increased emotion regulation, resting-state functional connectivity within the emotion regulation network and frontoparietal network, and rsFC (...) between the ERN and amygdala; however, training did not influence the rsFC between the FPN and the amygdala. However, self-regulation training on rDLPFC significantly improved emotion regulation and generally increased the rsFCs within the networks; the rsFC between the ERN and amygdala was also selectively increased. The present study also described a safe approach that may improve emotion regulation through self-regulation training on non-emotional brain regions. (shrink)

ObjectivesWorking memory is essential for daily life skills like reading comprehension, reasoning, and problem-solving. Healthy aging of the brain goes along with working memory decline that can affect older people’s independence in everyday life. Interventions in the form of cognitive training are a promising tool for delaying age-related working memory decline, yet the underlying structural plasticity of white matter is hardly studied.MethodsWe conducted a longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging study to investigate the effects of an intensive four-week adaptive working memory training (...) on white matter integrity quantified by global and tract-wise mean diffusivity. We compared diffusivity measures of fiber tracts that are associated with working memory of 32 young and 20 older participants that were randomly assigned to a working memory training group or an active control group.ResultsThe behavioral analysis showed an increase in working memory performance after the four-week adaptive working memory training. The neuroanatomical analysis revealed a decrease in mean diffusivity in the working memory training group after the training intervention in the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus for the older adults. There was also a decrease in mean diffusivity in the working memory training group in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus for the older and young participants after the intervention.ConclusionThis study shows that older people can benefit from working memory training by improving their working memory performance that is also reflected in terms of improved white matter integrity in the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, where the first is an essential component of the frontoparietal network known to be essential in working memory. (shrink)