Embodied Choice: How Action Influences Perceptual Decision Making

Abstract

Embodied Choice considers action performance as a proper part of the decision making process rather than merely as a means to report the decision. The central statement of embodied choice is the existence of bidirectional influences between action and decisions. This implies that for a decision expressed by an action, the action dynamics and its constraints ( e.g. current trajectory and kinematics) influence the decision making process. Here we use a perceptual decision making task to compare three types of model: a serial decision-then-action model, a parallel decision-and-action model, and an embodied choice model where the action feeds back into the decision making. The embodied model incorporates two key mechanisms that together are lacking in the other models: action preparation and commitment. First, action preparation strategies alleviate delays in enacting a choice but also modify decision termination. Second, action dynamics change the prospects and create a commitment effect to the initially preferred choice. Our results show that these two mechanisms make embodied choice models better suited to combine decision and action appropriately to achieve suitably fast and accurate responses, as usually required in ecologically valid situations. Moreover, embodied choice models with these mechanisms give a better account of trajectory tracking experiments during decision making. In conclusion, the embodied choice framework offers a combined theory of decision and action that gives a clear case that embodied phenomena such as the dynamics of actions can have a causal influence on central cognition.

Author Summary

The modern view of how we make perceptual decisions is of a process of accumulating sensory evidence until reaching a threshold level of certainty. However, this evidence accumulation model neglects the contribution of action and motor processes to the choice that is made. Recent novel studies that track the changing dynamics of actions during perceptual decisions are increasingly revealing the contribution of the actions we make to our perceptual choices. Thus, the action dynamics of our bodies causally influences our central cognition, which is a core assumption of embodied theories of mind. This paper presents an explanation of how actions, encompassing behavioral strategies such as preparation and commitment, can bias decision making processes in ways that optimize the ecological choices of animals behaving in natural environments. It thus combines two disconnected research streams, decision-making and action control in a manner consistent with theoretical and psychological arguments for embodied cognition.

Contributors

Jean Daunizeau: Role: Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS Comput Biol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS Comput. Biol

Journal ID (publisher-id): plos

Journal ID (pmc): ploscomp

Title: PLoS Computational Biology

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )

ISSN (Print): 1553-734X

ISSN (Electronic): 1553-7358

Publication date Collection: April 2015

Publication date (Electronic): 7 April 2015

Volume: 11

Issue: 4

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Engineering Mathematics, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

[2 ]Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), University of Bristol and University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

[3 ]Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy

Brain and Spine Institute (ICM), FRANCE

Author notes

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Conceived and designed the experiments: NFL GP. Performed the experiments: NFL GP. Analyzed the data: NFL GP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NFL GP. Wrote the paper: NFL GP.

* E-mail: giovanni.pezzulo@ 123456istc.cnr.it

Article

Publisher ID: PCOMPBIOL-D-14-00782

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004110

PMC ID: 4388485

PubMed ID: 25849349

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Page count

Figures: 7, Tables: 2, Pages: 22

Product

Funding

GP has received research funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, grant FP7-270108 (Goal-Leaders) and by the Human Frontier Science Program, grant RGY0088/2014. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Categories

Subject: Research Article

Custom metadata

Data Availability All data underlying the findings described in the manuscript can be downloaded from www.lepora.com/publications/lepora_pezzulo2014_code.zip