The modulatory influence of end-point controllability on decisions between actions

Abstract

Recent work has shown that human subjects are able to predict the biomechanical ease of potential reaching movements and use these predictions to influence their choices. Here, we examined how reach decisions are influenced by specific biomechanical factors related to the control of end-point stability, such as aiming accuracy or stopping control. Human subjects made free choices between two potential reaching movements that varied in terms of path distance and biomechanical cost in four separate blocks that additionally varied two constraints: the width of the targets (narrow or wide) and the requirement of stopping in them. When movements were unconstrained (very wide targets and no requirement of stopping), subjects' choices were strongly biased toward directions aligned with the direction of maximal mobility. However, as the movements became progressively constrained, factors related to the control of the end point gained relevance, thus reducing this bias. This demonstrates that, before movement onset, constraints such as stopping and aiming participate in a remarkably adaptive and flexible action selection process that trades off the advantage of moving along directions of maximal mobility for unconstrained movements against exploiting biomechanical anisotropies to facilitate control of end-point stability whenever the movement constraints require it. These results support a view of decision making between motor actions as a highly context-dependent gradual process in which the subjective desirability of potential actions is influenced by their dynamic properties in relation to the intrinsic properties of the motor apparatus.