Experiment
The Urge Clock
In 1983, Benjamin Libet asked participants to flex a wrist whenever they felt like it, watch a fast-rotating clock, and report where the hand was the moment they first felt the urge to act. His real finding used EEG: measurable brain activity, the "readiness potential," began before people's reported moment of conscious urge, often by several hundred milliseconds. This demo can't read your brain activity. What it can test is something the original experiment also depended on: how precisely you can pin down, from memory, the exact instant a spontaneous decision happened.
Three short trials. Each time, a hand will spin around a dial. Wait until you feel a genuine, unplanned urge to act, then click "Act." Right after, you'll be asked to mark where the hand was when you first felt that urge, before you actually clicked.
Trial 1 of 3
Watch the hand. Click "Act" whenever the urge strikes, unplanned.
Click on the dial, or use the slider below, to mark where the hand was the moment you first felt the urge to act, before you actually clicked "Act."
Discussion
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