''Yep, I'm certainly no expert. Maybe you can point me towards some further reading on the matter?''
It's a huge field of study, I mentioned Libet because he was one of the pioneers of the 500 millisecond delay between stimulus and conscious experience (reflex actions are faster because they bypass higher function processing) Libet himself tried to salvage 'free will' by proposing veto function, a window of opportunity where a decision can be altered/vetoed, but there are reasons why this fails.
''Introduction Benjamin Libet has developed an extended research program on the timing of conscious experience, investigating first the conscious experience of sensory stimuli, then of voluntary action. His results have led to startling conclusions, which have aroused a great deal of controversy (P. S. Churchland 1981a, 1981b; "Open peer commentary" in Libet 1985; Glynn 1990, 1991; Dennett & Kinsbourne 1992). First, he has suggested that we may be conscious of sensory stimuli only after rather long latencies of up to half a second or more (Libet et al. 1964''
''An extended examination of Libet's works led to a comprehensive reinterpretation of his results. According to this reinterpretation, the Minimum Train Duration of electrical brain stimulation should be considered as the time needed to create a brain stimulus efficient for producing conscious sensation and not as a basis for inferring the latency for conscious sensation of peripheral origin. Latency for conscious sensation with brain stimulation may occur after the Minimum Train Duration. Backward masking with cortical stimuli suggests a 125-300 ms minimum value for the latency for conscious sensation of threshold skin stimuli.''
A small sample of other interesting works and experiments;
''we presented evidence that the brain, when tricked by optical and sensory illusions, can quickly adopt another human form as its own, no matter how different it is. We designed two experiments. In the first one, the researchers fitted the head of a mannequin with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of the volunteers eyes, so that the volunteer could see what the mannequin saw.
When the mannequins camera eyes and the volunteers head, complete with the camera goggles, were directed downwards, the volunteer saw the dummys body where he or she would normally have seen his or her own body. By simultaneously touching the stomachs of both the volunteer and the mannequin, we could create the illusion of body swapping.'' http://www.scienceinschool.org/2010/issue15/ehrsson
Mark Hallet, a specialist in motor action and cognition;
Volitional control of movement: The physiology of free will
Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 118, Issue 6, Pages 1179-1192
M. Hallett
''This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.'''
Delgado, of one the pioneers of electrical brain stimulation....which have been ongoing since his time;
''Dr. Delgado's contention that brain research has reached a stage of refinement where it can contribute to the solution of some of these problems is based, he said, on many of his own experiments. These have shown, he explained, that "functions traditionally related to the psyche, such as friendliness, pleasure or verbal expression, can be induced, modified and inhibited by direct electrical stimulation of the brain."
For example, he has been able to "play" monkeys and cats 'like little electronic toys" that yawn, hide, fight, play, mate and go to sleep on command. And with humans under treatment for epilepsy, he has increased word output sixfold in one person, has produced severe anxiety in another, and in several others has induced feelings of profound friendlinessall by electrical stimulation of various specific regions of their brain.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Manuel_Rodriguez_Delgado
Memory function and its role in recognition, self identity, interacting with the world and its objects and events:
''To successfully interact with objects in the environment, sensory evidence must be continuously acquired, interpreted, and used to guide appropriate motor responses. For example, when driving, a red light should motivate a motor command to depress the brake pedal. Single-unit recording studies have established that simple sensorimotor transformations are mediated by the same neurons that ultimately guide the behavioral response. However, it is also possible that these sensorimotor regions are the recipients of a modality-independent decision signal that is computed elsewhere. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and human observers to show that the time course of activation in a subregion of the right insula is consistent with a role in accumulating sensory evidence independently from the required motor response modality (saccade vs manual). Furthermore, a combination of computational modeling and simulations of the blood oxygenation level-dependent response suggests that this region is not simply recruited by general arousal or by the tonic maintenance of attention during the decision process. Our data thus raise the possibility that a modality-independent representation of sensory evidence may guide activity in effector-specific cortical areas before the initiation of a behavioral response''. http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/27/8675
A general outline of neural structures and their cognitive functions for reference;
''People suffering from Alzheimer's disease are not only losing their memory, but they are also losing their personality. In order to understand the relationship between personality and memory, it is important to define personality and memory. Personality, as defined by some neurobiologists and psychologists, is a collection of behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that are not controlled by the I-function. Memory, on the other hand, is controlled and regulated by the I-function of the neocortex. It is a collection of short stories that the I-function makes-up in order to account for the events and people. Memory is also defined as the ability to retain information, and it is influenced by three important stages. The first stage is encoding and processing the information, the second stage is the storing of the memory, and the third stage is memory retrieval. There are also the different types of memories like sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. The sensory memory relates to the initial moment when an event or an object is first detected. Short-term memories are characterized by slow, transient alterations in communication between neurons and long-term memories (1). Long-term memories are marked by permanent changes to the neural structure''
Max-Planck-GesellschaftSummary: Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. "Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
