Abstract
Free choice tasks are tasks in which two or more equally valid response options per stimulus exist from which participants can choose. In investigations of the putative difference between self-generated and externally triggered actions, they are often contrasted with forced choice tasks, in which only one response option is considered correct. Usually, responses in free choice tasks are slower when compared with forced choice task responses, which may point to a qualitative difference in response selection. It was, however, also suggested that free choice tasks are in fact random generation tasks. Here, we tested the prediction that in this case, randomness of the free choice responses depends on working memory (WM) load. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with varying levels of external WM support in the form of displayed previous choices. In Experiment 2, WM load was induced via a concurrent n-back task. The data generally confirm the prediction: in Experiment 1, WM support improved both randomness and speed of responses. In Experiment 2, randomness decreased and responses slowed down with increasing WM load. These results suggest that free choice tasks have much in common with random generation tasks.
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Notes
For example, in the thought experiment of Buridan’s ass, a hungry donkey has to choose between two piles of hay, resulting in the donkey’s death of hunger because there is no criterion by which to choose a pile (see also Rescher 2005 for more information).
Indeed, the type of instruction used in free choice contexts bears similarities to a common mathematical definition of randomness derived from Kolmogorov complexity (Martin-Löf 1966). (Over-)Simplified, according to this definition, if a string of information can be described in a more concise manner than if it were simply written out, it is not random. For example, the number 4,294,967,296 can be described much shorter as 2^32. Thus, the number would not be seen as very random.
Another experiment was performed in which the same type of WM support was given except the previous 0, 1, 2, and 3 choices were displayed and a block in which three symbols unrelated to the task were shown instead of previous choices. As the results were largely compatible with the other results, the experiment is not reported here.
In fact, LUD was different from zero in most of the conditions of our experiments.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation), grant JA 2307/1–2 awarded to Markus Janczyk. Work of MJ is further supported by the Institutional Strategy of the University of Tübingen (DFG ZUK 63). We thank Davood Gozli for helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript. In addition, Cosima Schneider and Moritz Durst provided valuable feedback that improved this manuscript.
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Appendix
Appendix
For completeness, we report the Helmert contrasts separately for each window size in this “Appendix” section.
Experiment 1
The descriptive results of the following analyses are summarized in Table 4.
Contrast 1:
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Window Size 2: t(29) = 4.44, p < .001
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Window Size 4: t(29) = 3.48, p = .002
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Window Size 6: t(29) = 3.11, p = .004
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Window Size 8: t(29) = 2.82, p = .009
Contrast 2:
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Window Size 2: t(29) = 1.26, p = .217
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Window Size 4: t(29) = 0.96, p = .344
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Window Size 6: t(29) = 0.00, p = .997
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Window Size 8: t(29) = 0.04, p = .963
Experiment 2
The descriptive results of the following analyses are summarized in Table 5.
Contrast 1:
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Window Size 2: t(31) = 1.99, p = .056
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Window Size 4: t(31) = 3.35, p = .002
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Window Size 6: t(31) = 3.77, p = .001
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Window Size 8: t(31) = 4.23, p < .001
Contrast 2:
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Window Size 2: t(31) = 2.18, p = .017
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Window Size 4: t(31) = 2.88, p = .007
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Window Size 6: t(31) = 3.51, p = .001
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Window Size 8: t(31) = 3.85, p = .001
Contrast 3:
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Window Size 2: t(31) = 3.95, p < .001
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Window Size 4: t(31) = 3.84, p = .001
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Window Size 6: t(31) = 3.92, p < .001
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Window Size 8: t(31) = 2.81, p = .008
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Naefgen, C., Janczyk, M. Free choice tasks as random generation tasks: an investigation through working memory manipulations. Exp Brain Res 236, 2263–2275 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-018-5295-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-018-5295-2