ReviewTrends in cognitive sciences2021
What Is the Readiness Potential?
Review in Trends in cognitive sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 171 citations in OpenAlex.
- No evidence for modulation of the readiness potential by respiratory phase during natural breathing.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Factors that influence the amplitude of the bereitschaftspotential.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Action fluency and conscious intention: being aware of what we are about to do.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- A portable solution for simultaneous human movement and mobile EEG acquisition: readiness potential for basketball free-throw shooting.Experimental brain research · 2026Article
- Decoding time from space: A review of the complication clock and its representation of temporal experience.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Neural mechanisms of awareness of action.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Anxiety disorders alter cognitive-motor integration during visuomotor adaptation and retention.Experimental brain research · 2026Article
- A primary central source determines perturbation-evoked N1 amplitudes in younger adults.Journal of neurophysiology · 2026Article
- Intention-Action Conflict EEG-Hand Kinematics Dataset for Unimanual Control under Congruent and Incongruent Conditions.Scientific data · 2026Article
- A brain-wide, trial- and time-dependent deterministic drive synergizes with within-trial noise to time self-initiated actions.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Spatial Distance and Temporal Attentional Focus Modulate Voluntary Action Preparation and Awareness.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- A Primary Central Source Determines Perturbation-Evoked N1 Amplitudes but not Latencies in Younger Adults.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Post-loss speeding and neurophysiological markers of action preparation and outcome processing in probabilistic reversal learning.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Article
- Progress and ongoing conceptual challenges "on the way to integrative human neuroscience"-ten years after.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2026Article
- Exploring Brain Dynamics Within the Approach-Avoidance Bias.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Frontocentral Neural Dynamics Reflect Decisions about When to Act.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- A Neural Signature of the Bias Toward Self-Focus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neural mechanisms of articulatory motor speech deficit in post-stroke aphasia: An ERP study.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- The Compass of Commitment: Control Mechanisms Underpinning the Sense of Individual and Joint Commitment.Cognitive science · 2025Review
- Moderate manipulation to somatosensory feedback does not affect Libet-style intentional action.Psychological research · 2025Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The readiness potential (RP), a slow buildup of electrical potential recorded at the scalp using electroencephalography, has been associated with neural activity involved in movement preparation. It became famous thanks to Benjamin Libet (Brain 1983;106:623-642), who used the time difference between the RP and self-reported time of conscious intention to move to argue that we lack free will. The RP's informativeness about self-generated action and derivatively about free will has prompted continued research on this neural phenomenon. Here, we argue that recent advances in our understanding of the RP, including computational modeling of the phenomenon, call for a reassessment of its relevance for understanding volition and the philosophical problem of free will.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.