For many decades the study of decision-making has been a hot topic in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. Specifically, signal-detection theory (SDT) and so-called sequential sampling models have proven to be powerful ways of describing the decision process. Recently, it has been suggested that the sense of ‘willing’ that arises prior to an action or even consciousness can be seen as ‘a decision to engage in a certain way’. Such a perspective implies that similar principles are underlying conscious vs. unconscious decision-making. In contrast, others have argued that unconscious and conscious decision processes emerge from different mechanisms in the brain.

In this symposium we will discuss how current advancements in the study of decision-making contribute to our understanding of consciousness and volition. Critically, decision-making is a complex process that engages multiple levels of description, each of which may involve both conscious and unconscious mechanisms. Therefore, we will shed light on the role and necessity of consciousness in decision-making from various cognitive neuroscientific angles. Here, we will discuss (1) brain mechanisms underlying objective and subjective freedom of choice in decision-making, (2) the influence of random fluctuations in the sensory context and in brain activity may on decision-making, (3) how wakefulness affects distinct processes of cognition of awareness and metacognition, (4) how manipulations of awareness of feedback influences our decision process, and (4) what kind of processes govern decision-making and the monitoring of our decision process.

To bring this debate to the surface “what is the role of conscious and unconscious processes in decision making”, we aim to integrate different aspects of perceptual consciousness, executive decisions, unconscious influences, wakefulness, free will and embodied cognition into a wide view of what makes us make up our minds.