scholarly journals What makes a reach movement effortful? Physical effort discounting supports common minimization principles in decision making and motor control

PLoS Biology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. e2001323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Morel ◽  
Philipp Ulbrich ◽  
Alexander Gail
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Control ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Effort Discounting

scholarly journals Corticoinsular circuits encode subjective value expectation and violation for effortful goal-directed behavior

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (22) ◽  
pp. E5233-E5242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda R. Arulpragasam ◽  
Jessica A. Cooper ◽  
Makiah R. Nuutinen ◽  
Michael T. Treadway
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Error Signal ◽  
Value Prediction ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
Effort Discounting ◽  
Trial History ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior

We are presented with choices each day about how to invest our effort to achieve our goals. Critically, these decisions must frequently be made under conditions of incomplete information, where either the effort required or possible reward to be gained is uncertain. Such choices therefore require the development of potential value estimates to guide effortful goal-directed behavior. To date, however, the neural mechanisms for this expectation process are unknown. Here, we used computational fMRI during an effort-based decision-making task where trial-wise information about effort costs and reward magnitudes was presented separately over time, thereby allowing us to model distinct effort/reward computations as choice-relevant information unfolded. We found that ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) encoded expected subjective value. Further, activity in dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) and anterior insula (aI) reflected both effort discounting as well as a subjective value prediction error signal derived from trial history. While prior studies have identified these regions as being involved in effort-based decision making, these data demonstrate their specific role in the formation and maintenance of subjective value estimates as relevant information becomes available.

scholarly journals Social decision making in autism: On the impact of mirror neurons, motor control, and imitative behaviors

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 669-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radwa Khalil ◽  
Richard Tindle ◽  
Thomas Boraud ◽  
Ahmed A. Moustafa ◽  
Ahmed A. Karim
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Control ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Social Decision Making ◽  
The Impact

Decision Making, Control, and Concept Formation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin V. Butz ◽  
Esther F. Kutter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Control ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
Interactive Control ◽  
Motor Primitives ◽  
Control Loops ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
Dependent Behavior ◽  
The Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Event Boundary

While attention controls the internal, mental focus of attention, motor control directs the bodily control focus. Our nervous system is structured in a cascade of interactive control loops, where the primary self-stabilizing control loops can be found directly in the body’s morphology and the muscles themselves. The hierarchical structure enables flexible and selective motor control and the invocation of motor primitives and motor complexes. The learning of motor primitives and complexes again adheres to certain computational systematicities. Redundant behavioral alternatives are encoded in an abstract manner, enabling fast habitual decision making and slower, more elaborated planning processes for realizing context-dependent behavior adaptations. On a higher level, behavior can be segmented into events, during which a particular behavior unfolds, and event boundaries, which characterize the beginning or the end of a behavior. Combinations of events and event boundaries yield event schemata. Hierarchical combinations of event schemata on shorter and longer time scales yield event taxonomies. When developing event boundary detectors, our mind begins to develop environmental conceptualizations. Evidence is available that suggests that such event-oriented conceptualizations are inherently semantic and closely related to linguistic, generative models. Thus, by optimizing behavioral versatility and developing progressively more abstract codes of environmental interactions and manipulations, cognitive encodings develop, which are supporting symbol grounding and grammatical language development.

Weight as an Embodiment of Importance

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 1169-1174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils B. Jostmann ◽  
Daniël Lakens ◽  
Thomas W. Schubert
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Abstract Concept ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
Concrete Objects ◽  
Bodily Experiences ◽  
Important Study

Four studies show that the abstract concept of importance is grounded in bodily experiences of weight. Participants provided judgments of importance while they held either a heavy or a light clipboard. Holding a heavy clipboard increased judgments of monetary value (Study 1) and made participants consider fair decision-making procedures to be more important (Study 2). It also caused more elaborate thinking, as indicated by higher consistency between related judgments (Study 3) and by greater polarization of agreement ratings for strong versus weak arguments (Study 4). In line with an embodied perspective on cognition, these findings suggest that, much as weight makes people invest more physical effort in dealing with concrete objects, it also makes people invest more cognitive effort in dealing with abstract issues.

scholarly journals Dopamine-dependent loss aversion during effort-based decision-making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiuli Chen ◽  
Sarah Voets ◽  
Ned Jenkinson ◽  
Joseph M. Galea
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Decision Making Under Risk ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Clinical Disorders ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cost

AbstractFrom psychology to economics there has been substantial interest in how costs (e.g., delay, risk) are represented asymmetrically during decision-making when attempting to gain reward or to avoid punishment. For example, in decision-making under risk, individuals show a tendency to prefer to avoid punishment than to acquire the equivalent reward (loss aversion). Although the cost of physical effort has received significant recent attention due to the evaluation of motor costs being crucial in our daily decisions, it remains unclear whether loss aversion exists during effort-based decision-making. On the one hand, loss aversion may be hardwired due to asymmetric evolutionary pressure on losses and gains and therefore exists across decision-making contexts. On the other hand, distinct brain regions are involved with different decision costs, making it questionable whether similar asymmetries exist. Here, we demonstrate that young healthy participants exhibit loss aversion during effort-based decision-making by exerting more physical effort in order to avoid punishment than to gain a same-size reward. Next, we show that medicated Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients show a reduction in loss aversion compared to age-matched controls. Behavioural and computational analysis revealed that people with PD exerted similar physical effort in return for a reward, but were less willing to produce effort in order to avoid punishment. Therefore, loss aversion is present during effort-based decision-making and can be modulated by altered dopaminergic state. This finding could have important implications for our understanding of clinical disorders that show a reduced willingness to exert effort in the pursuit of reward.Significance StatementLoss aversion – preferring to avoid punishment than to acquire equivalent reward – is an important concept in decision-making under risk. However, little is known about whether loss aversion also exists during decisions where the cost is physical effort. This is surprising given that motor cost shapes human behaviour, and a reduced willingness to exert effort is a characteristic of many clinical disorders. Here, we show that healthy individuals exert more effort to minimise punishment than to maximise reward (loss aversion). We also demonstrate that loss aversion is modulated by altered dopaminergic state by showing that medicated Parkinson’s disease patients exert similar effort to gain reward but less effort to avoid punishment. Therefore, dopamine-dependent loss aversion is crucial for explaining effort-based decision-making.

scholarly journals Gain-Loss Asymmetry in Delay and Effort Discounting of Different Amounts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szymon Bartłomiej Mizak ◽  
Paweł Ostaszewski ◽  
Przemysław Marcowski ◽  
Wojciech Białaszek
Keyword(s):  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
P Loss ◽  
Effort Discounting ◽  
Gain Loss ◽  
Gains And Losses ◽  
Intertemporal Choices

Loss aversion entails the attribution of greater weight to losses than to equivalent gains. In terms of discounting, it is reflected in a higher rate for gains than for losses. Research on delay discounting indicates that such gain-loss asymmetry may depend on the amount of the outcome. In the current study, we address the question of how gains and losses are discounted in delay or effort conditions (physical or cognitive) across four outcome amounts. Our results replicate previous findings for intertemporal choices by showing that losses are discounted more slowly than gains, but only for smaller amounts, while there is no evidence of asymmetry in the evaluation for larger amounts. For physical effort discounting, we found an inverse asymmetry for the smallest amount tested (gains are discounted less steeply than losses), while such an effect is absent for larger amounts. Our results provide no support for the asymmetric evaluation of gains and losses for cognitive effort. Overall, our findings indicate that loss aversion may not be as pervasive as one might expect, at least when decisions are effort-based.

scholarly journals Effects of reward history on decision-making and movement vigor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shruthi Sukumar ◽  
Reza Shadmehr ◽  
Alaa A Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Control ◽  
Control Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Consistent Effect ◽  
History Of ◽  
Series Of Experiments

During foraging, animals decide how long to stay and harvest reward, and then abandon that site and travel with a certain speed to the next reward opportunity. One aspect of this behavior involves decision-making, while the other involves motor-control. A recent theory posits that control of decision-making and movements may be linked via a desire to maximize a single normative utility: the sum of all rewards acquired, minus all efforts expended, divided by time. If this is the case, then the history of rewards, and not just its immediate availability, should dictate how long one decides to stay and harvest reward, and how slowly one travels to the next opportunity. We tested this theory in a series of experiments in which humans used their hand to harvest tokens at a reward patch, and then used their arm to reach toward a subsequent opportunity. Following a history of poor rewards, people not only foraged for a longer period, but also moved slower to the next reward site. Thus, reward history had a consistent effect on both the decision-making process regarding when to abandon a reward site, and the motor control process regarding how fast to move to the next opportunity.

scholarly journals Distinct striatal subregions and corticostriatal connectivity for effort, action and reward

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shosuke Suzuki ◽  
Victoria M. Lawlor ◽  
Jessica A. Cooper ◽  
Amanda R. Arulpragasam ◽  
Michael T. Treadway
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Ventral Striatum ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
Effort Discounting ◽  
Freely Moving ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe ventral striatum is believed to encode the subjective value of cost/benefit options; however, this effect has strikingly been absent during choices that involve physical effort. Prior work in freely-moving animals has revealed opposing striatal signals, with greater response to increasing effort demands and reduced responses to rewards requiring effort. Yet, the relationship between these conflicting signals remains unknown. Using fMRI with a naturalistic, effort-based navigation paradigm, we identified functionally-segregated regions within ventral striatum that separately encoded action, effort, and discounting of rewards by effort. Strikingly, these sub-regions mirrored results from a large-sample connectivity-based parcellation of the striatum. Moreover, individual differences in striatal effort activation and effort discounting signals predicted striatal responses to effort-related choices during an independent fMRI task. Taken together, our results suggest that a dorsomedial region primarily associated with action may instead represent the effort cost of actions, and raises fundamental questions regarding the interpretation of striatal “reward” signals in the context of effort demands.

Individual Differences in Visual, Motor and Cognitive Performances: Correlations with a Simulated Shuttle Landing Task

1997 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 589-593
Author(s):  
Robert S. Kennedy ◽  
Norman E. Lane ◽  
Janet J. Turnage ◽  
Deborah L. Harm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Control ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Sensory System ◽  
Drug Effects ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
System Integrity ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Visual Motor

Numerous physiological changes which occur during and following space flight are well-documented. It seems likely that the frequency and severity of these physiological changes would be accompanied by changes in cognition, sensory system integrity, skilled motor control, and complex decision making. However, changes in performance in these areas are not well documented nor understood. Documenting the extent and nature of such potential performance decrements, to the extent that they occur, becomes increasingly important as NASA prepares for longer duration missions on space station and contemplates more complex missions in future exploration of space. We explored the application of a methodology we are developing called surrogate testing. The method requires the linkage of complex real world tasks to more elemental tasks. This report shows, as first steps, predictive validities of such tests for a simulated shuttle landing and provides a series of surrogate scores which can be used to evaluate stresses and drug effects.

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