New research from Indiana University suggests that when your brain makes a decision, it may not actually “make” it in the way neuroscientists have traditionally assumed.
Conventionally, decision-making has been described as a sequence: you have options to consider, you choose one, and then you act. However, neuroscientist Tom James argues that this sequence may not accurately reflect what actually happens in the brain.
Traditional models suggest that the brain has centralized processes responsible for making decisions. James argues that what people experience as “decision-making” may instead arise from ongoing interactions among perception, movement, the body, and the environment. If correct, this perspective could significantly change how scientists understand human behavior.
The Sandwich Model Debated
James describes one traditional approach to cognition as the “sandwich model”: sensory systems take in information, cognitive processes evaluate it and determine what to do, and motor systems then carry out the chosen action.
The problem, James argues, is that while scientists can identify many of the physical mechanisms involved in sensation and movement, it is much harder to locate a central point in the brain where a “decision” actually occurs.
Instead, James proposes thinking in terms of “action selection,” in which sensory, sensorimotor, and motor processes continually interact to produce behavior. But does that mean humans don’t actually make decisions?
“Of course they do. We use this language all the time, and it’s very helpful in terms of describing behavior,” James said in a statement. “The leap, I think, is to say that the brain works by having decision-making or control processes. It produces behavior that is well described in that way. But it doesn’t need a process that does that to make it look that way.”
In his view, “decision-making” may therefore be a useful way of describing human behavior rather than something the brain accomplishes through a specific, centralized process or system.
“As mental phenomena, they are defined on too abstract a level for the goals of cognitive neuroscience,” adds James.
Decisions are not “things”
Bridging neuroscience and philosophy, James draws on a physicalist framework associated with philosopher Daniel Dennett. Consider an object’s center of mass: it helps us describe and predict how the object behaves, but it isn’t a separate physical component causing the object to move.
James suggests decisions may work similarly. We can say someone “decided” to pick up a glass, but that does not necessarily mean there is a central location in the brain where that decision was made. Instead, the action could emerge from multiple brain and bodily processes working together.
As an analogy, James describes a robot programmed to follow a wall. Someone watching it might interpret its movements as a series of decisions, yet the robot does not require a centralized decision-making system. Instead, its sensors continually interact with its surroundings to guide its behavior.
James suggests that aspects of human behavior could be understood in much the same way.
A philosophical challenge
James’s argument also addresses a longstanding philosophical problem. If the brain contains a central system that observes information and decides how we should act, what controls that controller?
This resembles what Dennett famously called the “Cartesian Theater”: the idea of an internal observer somehow watching and interpreting what happens inside the brain. But proposing such an observer only pushes the problem back another step—who, then, observes the observer?
Rather than placing a hypothetical decision-maker somewhere inside the brain, James argues that researchers should focus on the interacting physical systems that produce behavior.
That could mean studying cognition as something that emerges through the ongoing relationship between the brain, body, and environment, rather than as a sequence of isolated stages.
The feeling that “I made a decision” may remain perfectly real and useful as a description of human experience, even if there is no single place or process in the brain where that decision occurs. From James’s perspective, what we call a decision may instead be the outcome of interactions among the brain, body, and surrounding world.
This study can be found in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.