Quantifying motor task performance by bounded rational decision theory

Erstveröffentlichung
2018-12-14Authors
Schach, Sonja
Gottwald, Sebastian
Braun, Daniel A.
Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
Published in
Frontiers in Neuroscience ; 2018 (2018), 12. - Art.-Nr. 932. - ISSN 1662-4548
Link to original publication
https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00932Faculties
Fakultät für Ingenieurwissenschaften, Informatik und PsychologieInstitutions
Institut für NeuroinformatikDocument version
published version (publisher's PDF)Abstract
Expected utility models are often used as a normative baseline for human performance
in motor tasks. However, this baseline ignores computational costs that are incurred
when searching for the optimal strategy. In contrast, bounded rational decision-theory
provides a normative baseline that takes computational effort into account, as it describes
optimal behavior of an agent with limited information-processing capacity to change
a prior motor strategy (before information-processing) into a posterior strategy (after
information-processing). Here, we devised a pointing task where subjects had restricted
reaction and movement time. In particular, we manipulated the permissible reaction time
as a proxy for the amount of computation allowed for planning the movements. Moreover,
we tested three different distributions over the target locations to induce different prior
strategies that would influence the amount of required information-processing. We found
that movement endpoint precision generally decreases with limited planning time and that
non-uniform prior probabilities allow for more precise movements toward high-probability
targets. Considering these constraints in a bounded rational decision model, we found
that subjects were generally close to bounded optimal. We conclude that bounded
rational decision theory may be a promising normative framework to analyze human
sensorimotor performance.
EU Project uulm
BRISC / Bounded Rationality in Sensorimotor Coordination / EC / H2020 / 678082
Publication funding
Open-Access-Förderung durch die Universität Ulm
Is supplemented by
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00932/full#supplementary-materialhttp://dx.doi.org/10.18725/OPARU-11865
Subject headings
[GND]: Eingeschränkte Rationalität | Bewegungssteuerung | Optimalitätstheorie | Reaktionszeit[LCSH]: Human information processing
[Free subject headings]: Bounded rationality | Motor control | Movement planning | Optimality model | Reaction time | Information-processing resources | Computational cost
[DDC subject group]: DDC 004 / Data processing & computer science
Metadata
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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18725/OPARU-11360
Schach, Sonja; Gottwald, Sebastian; Braun, Daniel A. (2019): Quantifying motor task performance by bounded rational decision theory. Open Access Repositorium der Universität Ulm und Technischen Hochschule Ulm. http://dx.doi.org/10.18725/OPARU-11360
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