I know the answer but I have doubt in one part. Like the conventional idea only talks about ‘W’ precedes ‘M’. In between the paragraph it never talks about the position of ‘RP’. Then, in last sentence it uses words like ‘surprising’ and ‘direct contradiction of the classical conception’, to show the contrast. Here’s my question: like after showing contrast author used comma(’,’). Isn’t the comma gives an complete explanation of the sentence before? Here it is giving explanation about the part of the sentence ‘contradiction of the classical conception’, which is before the comma. How should I see comma in sentence? Should it give an explanation of part of sentence or complete sentence? I hope I am clear with my problem.
But researchers actually found a surprising temporal relation between subjective experience and objectively measured neural events: in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will, neural preparation to move (RP) preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds.
Hey, let’s parse the last sentence:
But researchers actually found a surprising temporal relation between subjective experience and objectively measured neural events: NOTICE! There is a colon after this sentence that means after the colon there is an explanation of what the surprising relation between subjective experience and objective action.
Now, after the colon, there is an explanation of why that temporal relationship is surprising.
in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will, neural preparation to move (RP) preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds.
If we parse the sentence after the colon, you can see it has two parts (or constituents)
- in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will = PP (Prepositional Phrase)
- neural preparation to move (RP) preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds (Clause)
Why there is a comma after that PP? Because it is a PP and it can move inside a sentence.
To demonstrate,
Case 1:
neural preparation to move (RP) preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds, in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will.
Case 2:
neural preparation to move (RP), in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will, preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds, in direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will.
Both cases would work. BUT preposing the PP (prepositional phrase) flows better in this (long) sentence.
In a sentence, PPs can sometimes be optional. In fact, the author could have omitted that PP, and it would still retain about the same meaning, at least in my opinion. In direct contradiction of the classical conception of free will– basically signals the reader, hey, there is a contradiction! BUT before this PP, the author deliberately signaled the contradiction using two keywords (BUT, SURPRISING).
Just read the sentence WITHOUT that PP (Not much of a difference in meaning):
But researchers actually found a surprising temporal relation between subjective experience and objectively measured neural events: neural preparation to move (RP) preceded conscious awareness of the intention to move (W) by hundreds of milliseconds.
I hope this (answer) helps you.
In the passage, it is implied that there is a link between W and M.
W precedes M.
See the sentence, this might seem to suggest an appropriate correspondence between the sequence of subjective experience(W) and the sequence of the underlying events in the brain (M)
Also, Actual movement (M) with readiness potential (RP)
and W precedes M. So, we can reasonably infer that W—>RP---->M
Because later on, it is mentioned that RP ----> W which contradicts the sequence based off of classical conception.