Probing folk-psychology: Do Libet-style experiments reflect folk intuitions about free action? Robert Deutschländer a,⇑ , Michael Pauen b , John-Dylan Haynes a,b,c,d,e,f,⇑ a Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité – Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany b Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany c Berlin Center of Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité – Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany d Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany e Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany f Clinic of Neurology, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany article info Article history: Received 10 May 2016 Revised 3 November 2016 Accepted 5 November 2016 Available online 23 December 2016 Keywords: Free action Libet-experiment Folk-psychology Experimental philosophy abstract There is an ongoing debate in philosophy and psychology about when one should consider an action to be free. Several aspects are frequently suggested as relevant: (a) a prior inten- tion, (b) a conscious action-related thought, (c) prior deliberation, (d) a meaningful choice, (e) different consequences of the action, and (f) the duration between intention and action. Here we investigated which criteria laypeople adopt and thus probed their intuitions about free actions in three surveys based on daily life scenarios. First, our results indicate that laypeople consider a conscious intention important for an action to be free. Second, laypeo- ple consider spontaneous actions without consequences to be freer than actions with prior deliberation. Third, laypeople consider proximal rather than distal intentions relevant when it comes to judging actions as free. Taken together, these results suggest that simple laboratory experiments on action choices reflect laypeople’s intuitions of free actions to a considerable degree. Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The problem of ‘‘free will” has been intensely debated among psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and lawyers (Batthyany, 2009; Haggard, 2008; Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983; Mele, 2009; Wegner, 2002). A main point of discus- sion is which implications can be drawn from Libet-style free choice experiments (Libet et al., 1983). The original study by Libet measured the relationship between the onset of brain activity and the timing of a conscious ‘‘urge” to move prior to an action. They found that the brain activity precedes the urge to move by around 350 ms. Similar findings were subsequently reported by other groups across delay periods of up to several seconds (Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008; Soon, He, Bode, & Haynes, 2013). The fact that the brain activity predicts an upcoming decision even before the person consciously believes to be making it has often been interpreted to undermine free will (Bargh, 2008; Haggard, 2008; Harris, 2012; Wegner, 2002). This and similar experiments have led to considerable debates not only within the scientific disciplines involved, but also in the media and general public. In response to this public debate, philosophers have frequently criticized that the simple http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.11.004 1053-8100/Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding authors at: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Philippstrabe 13 Haus 6, 10117 Berlin, Germany (J.-D. Haynes). E-mail addresses: robert.deutschlander@bccn-berlin.de (R. Deutschländer), haynes@bccn-berlin.de (J.-D. Haynes). Consciousness and Cognition 48 (2017) 232–245 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Consciousness and Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog