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Action Costs Rapidly and Automatically Interfere with Reward-Based Decision-Making in a Reaching Task
Emeline Pierrieau1, Jean-François Lepage2,3, Pierre-Michel Bernier4
1Département de Physiologie, Faculté de Médecine et des Sciences de la Santé, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec J1H 5N4, Canada emeline.pierrieau@usherbrooke.ca.
Eneuro
|July 20, 2021
Summary
Motor costs significantly impact reward-based decisions, even when rewards are high. Early processing rapidly integrates movement costs, influencing action selection before conscious reward evaluation.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Decision-Making
- Motor Control
Background:
- Decision-making research often focuses on rewards, with less attention to motor costs.
- Understanding how motor costs influence action selection is crucial but remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the integration of motor costs into reward-based decision-making.
- To determine when motor costs influence action selection during a reaching task.
Main Methods:
- Human participants performed a reaching task involving visually cued targets with varying motor costs and rewards.
- A timed-response paradigm manipulated reaction times (RT) to probe temporal processing.
- Movement trajectories and earnings were analyzed to assess decision biases.
Main Results:
- Short reaction times (<350 ms) showed movements deviating towards lower-cost targets, even if non-rewarded.
- Higher motor costs for rewarded targets delayed decision-making and reduced overall earnings.
- Motor costs demonstrably interfered with optimal reward-based choices.
Conclusions:
- Motor costs are rapidly and automatically integrated into early stages of action selection.
- This early integration may involve parieto-frontal network modulation of competing action representations.
- Top-down reward signals progressively overcome motor cost biases with longer reaction times.
