Libet followed up on Kornhuber’s finding with an experiment in which he asked volunteers to lift a finger whenever they felt the urge to do so. He placed an electrode on a volunteer’s skull and confirmed a readiness potential about 1 second before the person lifted his or her finger. He then compared the time it took for the person to will the movement with the time of the readiness potential. Amazingly, Libet found that the readiness potential appeared not after, but 200 milliseconds before a person felt the urge to move his or her finger! Thus by merely observing the electrical activity of
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