Action control costs in task selection: Agents avoid actions with incompatible movement and effect features

When a movement triggers effects with incompatible features, conflict between action and effect features creates costs for action planning and initiation. We investigated whether such action control costs also factor into action choices in terms of the principle of least effort. Participants completed a reaction-time experiment, where they were instructed to perform left and right mouse swipes in response to directional cues presented on the screen. Participants could select between two action options on each trial: Depending on which part of the screen (upper or lower) the action was performed in, the swipe resulted in a visual stimulus moving in the same (compatible) or in the opposite (incompatible) direction as the mouse. Incompatible action-effect mappings did indeed incur action control costs. In accordance with effort avoidance, the proportion of compatible choices was significantly above chance level, suggesting that action selection and initiation costs factor into participants preferences. Interestingly, however, participants' choice tendencies were not predicted by the actual increase in action-initiation costs in the incompatible condition. This indicates that effort-related decisions are not simply based on monitoring performance in the actual task, but they are also influenced by preestablished notions of action-planning costs.