Science Explorer Back to mapMap
Discussion
Topic · Cognitive Neuroscience

Free Will and Agency

Free Will and Agency is a research topic within Cognitive Neuroscience. Science Explorer counts 10k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the neural correlates and abnormalities related to the sense of agency, voluntary action, conscious awareness, and decision making, with a focus on conditions such as schizophrenia. It also delves into the philosophical implications of free will and moral responsibility in the context of motor cognition and predictive processes.

  • Sense of Agency
  • Voluntary Action
  • Conscious Awareness
  • Neural Correlates
  • Schizophrenia
  • Free Will
  • Motor Cognition
  • Auditory Cortex
  • Predictive Processes
  • Responsibility
Research works
10k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-6%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
42% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Free Will and Agency

Which countries lead Free Will and Agency research?

By volume, the United States and the United Kingdom publish the most (645 and 291 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 645 works
  2. 2 United Kingdom 291 works
  3. 3 Germany 178 works
  4. 4 China 91 works
  5. 5 Canada 66 works
  6. 6 Italy 63 works
  7. 7 Netherlands 58 works
  8. 8 Japan 57 works
  9. 9 Australia 56 works
  10. 10 Sweden 49 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 41.5%United Kingdom: 18.7%Germany: 11.4%China: 5.9%6 others listed: 22.4%42%largest
United States645 · 41.5%United Kingdom291 · 18.7%Germany178 · 11.4%China91 · 5.9%6 others listed348 · 22.4%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Free Will and Agency research?

By volume in 2022-now, University of Oxford publishes the most Free Will and Agency research, followed by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and University of Glasgow.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 42 works
  2. 2 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenGermany 21 works
  3. 3 University of GlasgowUnited Kingdom 17 works
  4. 4 University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom 17 works
  5. 5 Hebrew University of JerusalemIsrael 14 works
  6. 6 University College LondonUnited Kingdom 14 works
  7. 7 University of EdinburghUnited Kingdom 13 works
  8. 8 Florida State UniversityUnited States 13 works
  9. 9 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 12 works
  10. 10 University of ViennaAustria 12 works

Who are the leading researchers in Free Will and Agency?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Free Will and Agency include Karl John Friston, Michael C. Jensen and Trevor William Robbins.

  1. 1 Karl John Friston United Kingdom 310k citations
  2. 2 Michael C. Jensen United States 203k citations
  3. 3 Trevor William Robbins United Kingdom 199k citations
  4. 4 Roy Frederick Baumeister United States 183k citations
  5. 5 Chris Frith United Kingdom 175k citations
  6. 6 John T. Cacioppo United States 168k citations
  7. 7 Raymond J. Dolan United Kingdom 165k citations
  8. 8 Robin M. Murray United Kingdom 154k citations
  9. 9 Jim van Os Netherlands 146k citations
  10. 10 Anthony E. Lang Canada 146k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Free Will and Agency?

The most cited paper in Free Will and Agency is "Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see" (Matthew Botvinick, Jonathan A. Cohen, 1998), with 4,504 citations. Next come "Libertarian Paternalism" (1,873) and "Voluntary action and conscious awareness" (1,592).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see Matthew Botvinick, Jonathan A. Cohen · Nature 19 Feb 1998 4,504
2 Libertarian Paternalism Richard H. Thaler, Cass Robert Sunstein · American Economic Review Apr 2003 1,873
3 Voluntary action and conscious awareness Patrick Haggard, Sam L. Clark, Jeri Kalogeras · Nature Neuroscience 18 Mar 2002 1,592
4 Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction Susan V. Opotow · Journal of Social Issues Apr 1990 1,318
5 Tonic dopamine: opportunity costs and the control of response vigor Yael Niv, Nathaniel D. Daw, Daphna Joel et al. · Psychopharmacology 9 Oct 2006 1,222
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Free Will and Agency research done?

The largest centres of Free Will and Agency research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Oxford (United Kingdom), New York (United States) and Munich (Germany). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Oxford.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 51 works
  2. 2 OxfordUnited Kingdom 44 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 31 works
  4. 4 MunichGermany 26 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 24 works
  6. 6 Los AngelesUnited States 21 works
  7. 7 BerlinGermany 20 works
  8. 8 BeijingChina 20 works
  9. 9 ParisFrance 19 works
  10. 10 CambridgeUnited Kingdom 18 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. OxfordGB · 43.9 works12×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Free Will and Agency than the world average.

See Free Will and Agency on the map

Where is the best place to study Free Will and Agency?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Oxford, University of Vienna and University of Glasgow score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 12.53%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of GlasgowUniversity of ViennaUniversity College L…University of Oxford
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 76.914.4%16.3×42 -13.6%
2University of ViennaAustria 65.816.5%13.3×12 +111.3%
3University of GlasgowUnited Kingdom 65.617.2%14.4×17 +14.9%
4University College LondonUnited Kingdom 63.514.9%4.7×14 -32.9%
5Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenGermany 55.57.8%13.0×21 +100.9%
6University of EdinburghUnited Kingdom 53.014.5%8.2×13 +4.5%
7University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom 51.74.0%7.8×17 +16.3%
8University of ZurichSwitzerland 49.710.6%8.3×11 +10.2%
9University of California San DiegoUnited States 46.218.2%4.8×9 -4.3%
10Hebrew University of JerusalemIsrael 45.87.2%15.1×14 +29.6%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Free Will and Agency, country by country

Is Free Will and Agency research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 6% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2021.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Free Will and Agency as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.0069% in 2024.

still counting0.0050%0.010%0.015%Free Will and Agency0.0071% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Free Will and Agency over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Free Will and Agency10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Discussion

Ask a question or share a note about Free Will and Agency. Posts are plain text and can be reported.