2. Aaron Schurger: The readiness potential, auto-correlated noise, and the weather

Aaron is a cognitive neuroscientist, working on volition and consciousness. Aaron and I met in 2016 in Paris when I did my MSc thesis in his lab at Neurospin on decoding planned and spontaneous movements, using M/EEG. Aaron has since moved to California where he is Assistant Professor at Chapman University.In this conversation, we talk about Aaron's work in trying to understand the readiness potential. We talk about the classic interpretation, Aaron's interpretation, and how Aaron's interpretation can be applied to non-movement contexts, including the stock market and meteorology.Time stamps0:00:40 We don't really know what the readiness potential is0:01:52 The classic interpretation of the readiness potential0:16:39 Aaron's interpretation of the readiness potential0:31:04 The origin of Aaron's interpretation0:42:33 Applying Aaron's model to non-movement contexts: the stock market and meteorology0:54:40 - Aaron's plans for studying the readiness potential in the next few years: breathing, individual differences, anticipationLinksPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastAaron's links Chapman profile: https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/aaron-schurgerGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=lBSjfagAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sraTwitter: https://twitter.com/schurgerlabBen's links: Website: https://bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=aoPapers mentionedFried, I., Mukamel, R., & Kreiman, G. (2011). Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition. NeuronKagaya, K., & Takahata, M. (2010). Readiness discharge for spontaneous initiation of walking in crayfish. Journal of NeuroscienceKornhuber, H. H., & Deecke, L. (1965/2016). Hirnpotentialänderungen bei Willkürbewegungen und passiven Bewegungen des Menschen: Bereitschaftspotential und reafferente Potentiale/Brain potential changes in voluntary and passive movements in humans: readiness potential and reafferent potentials. Pflüger's ArchivLibet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity. BrainSchotanus, P., & Schurger, A. (2020). Spontaneous Volatility: Fooled by Reflexive Randomness. Journal of Behavioral FinanceSchurger, A., Sitt, J. D., & Dehaene, S. (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement. Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSchurger, A., Mylopoulos, M., & Rosenthal, D. (2016). Neural antecedents of spontaneous voluntary movement: a new perspective. Trends in Cognitive SciencesSchurger, A. (2018). Specific relationship between the shape of the readiness potential, subjective decision time, and waiting time predicted by an accumulator model with temporally autocorrelated input noise. Eneuro