Carrots and sticks, sure but...

The theory of hyperbolic discounting asserts that the farther in the future a consequence (positive or negative), the less it matters to us when compared to an immediate consequence. This is why we abandon our diets in the face of a cupcake: the future hot body just pales in comparison to fatty, sugary goodness right now.

This is why putting clear economic incentives on habits can be so effective. Ian Ayers' Carrots and Sticks is an excellent book detailing how making behavioral contracts can be effective for smoking cessation, weight loss, etc.

So, I'm on board with the method. However, I don't quite understand this motivational structure for working out. Here, a gym membership costs more when you miss a workout. Maybe this is just me (I see my gym time as my favorite time of day), but missing a workout already costs you more because your monthly membership dues means that you're paying more per workout when you work out less.

Thoughts?

Is it time to question a lack of free will?

In the early 1980s, psychologist Benjamin Libet conducted a relatively simple experiment that critically shaped the way we think about free-will. Participants sat facing a clock, keeping a finger on a button, and were instructed to lift the finger whenever they pleased, remembering the clock time corresponding to the time when they decided to move the finger. All the while, EEG was being recorded. Libet found that 300-500 msec before participants moved (and about 150 msec before reporting that they decided to move), that a strong negative signal was found in the EEG waveforms. If the brain "knows" you are going to move before you do, do you really have conscious control over your own behavior?

The Libet experiment has been replicated, if not uncontroversial among philosophers. However, a new paper in Psychological Science questions whether the readiness potential is an artifact of observing a moving clock.

In the new study, Jeff Miller and colleagues presented participants with two decision-making conditions: a clock condition, similar to that of Libet, and a condition without the clock. If the time between the decision and the movement is constant, then one can look at the EEG from the time to move, with or without the clock. The authors found that participants in the clock condition showed the readiness potential, but the participants in the no-clock condition did not, suggesting that the act of monitoring the clock modulated the EEG signal, not the preparation for making a decision.

I think that this study is innovative as we need new methods to study the time course of decision making. I do think it asks more questions than it answers, though. For example, there are differences between the clock and no-clock groups that go beyond the presence of a clock: being asked to keep a time in mind provides a load to working memory that the no-clock participants did not have.

Is it time to give up on Libet? I'm not so sure. Is it time to reconsider with new methods? Absolutely!

Miller J, Shepherdson P, & Trevena J (2010). Effects of Clock Monitoring on Electroencephalographic Activity: Is Unconscious Movement Initiation an Artifact of the Clock? Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS PMID: 21123855