Embodied decisions during walking.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Motor Control
• Decision Science

Background:

• Embodied decision-making research explores how concurrent actions affect value-based choices.
• The 'swing leg effect' demonstrates how walking direction can bias decisions, potentially due to motor costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether systematic manipulation of motor costs influences decisions during concurrent actions.
• To test the hypothesis that motor costs, not just movement, drive decision biases in embodied contexts.

Main Methods:

• Participants made decisions involving walking and turning towards targets with varying rewards.
• Motor costs were manipulated through symmetric and asymmetric turning magnitudes and added ankle weights.
• Decision biases were analyzed in relation to manipulated motor costs and concurrent movements.

Main Results:

• Experiments 1a and 1b showed that turning magnitude moderated the swing leg effect and stepping behavior.
• Experiment 2 indicated a preference for less costly, smaller turning magnitudes.
• Experiment 3 replicated the swing leg effect when walking costs were increased with ankle weights.

Conclusions:

• Dynamically changing motor costs significantly influence value-based decisions during ongoing actions.
• Findings support the concept of embodied decision-making, where physical actions and their associated costs shape choices.
• Motor processes and their associated costs are integral to understanding decision-making in embodied scenarios.