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Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort

Economists have known for centuries that to understand an individual's decisions, we must consider not only the objective value of the goal at stake, but its subjective value as well. However, achieving that goal ultimately requires expenditure of effort. Surprisingly, despite the ubiquitous ro...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Summerside, Erik M., Ahmed, Alaa A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8292015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34283943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0387
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author Summerside, Erik M.
Ahmed, Alaa A.
author_facet Summerside, Erik M.
Ahmed, Alaa A.
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description Economists have known for centuries that to understand an individual's decisions, we must consider not only the objective value of the goal at stake, but its subjective value as well. However, achieving that goal ultimately requires expenditure of effort. Surprisingly, despite the ubiquitous role of effort in decision-making and movement, we currently do not understand how effort is subjectively valued in daily movements. Part of the difficulty arises from the lack of an objective measure of effort. Here, we use a physiological approach to address this knowledge gap. We quantified objective effort costs by measuring metabolic cost via expired gas analysis as participants performed a reaching task against increasing resistance. We then used neuroeconomic methods to quantify each individual's subjective valuation of effort. Rather than the diminishing sensitivity observed in reward valuation, effort was valued objectively, on average. This is significantly less than the near-quadratic sensitivity to effort observed previously in force-based motor tasks. Moreover, there was significant inter-individual variability with many participants undervaluing or overvaluing effort. These findings demonstrate that in contrast with monetary decisions in which subjective value exhibits diminishing marginal returns, effort costs are valued more objectively in low-effort reaching movements common in daily life.
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spelling pubmed-82920152021-07-21 Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort Summerside, Erik M. Ahmed, Alaa A. J R Soc Interface Life Sciences–Engineering interface Economists have known for centuries that to understand an individual's decisions, we must consider not only the objective value of the goal at stake, but its subjective value as well. However, achieving that goal ultimately requires expenditure of effort. Surprisingly, despite the ubiquitous role of effort in decision-making and movement, we currently do not understand how effort is subjectively valued in daily movements. Part of the difficulty arises from the lack of an objective measure of effort. Here, we use a physiological approach to address this knowledge gap. We quantified objective effort costs by measuring metabolic cost via expired gas analysis as participants performed a reaching task against increasing resistance. We then used neuroeconomic methods to quantify each individual's subjective valuation of effort. Rather than the diminishing sensitivity observed in reward valuation, effort was valued objectively, on average. This is significantly less than the near-quadratic sensitivity to effort observed previously in force-based motor tasks. Moreover, there was significant inter-individual variability with many participants undervaluing or overvaluing effort. These findings demonstrate that in contrast with monetary decisions in which subjective value exhibits diminishing marginal returns, effort costs are valued more objectively in low-effort reaching movements common in daily life. The Royal Society 2021-07-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8292015/ /pubmed/34283943 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0387 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Life Sciences–Engineering interface
Summerside, Erik M.
Ahmed, Alaa A.
Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title_full Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title_fullStr Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title_full_unstemmed Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title_short Using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
title_sort using metabolic energy to quantify the subjective value of physical effort
topic Life Sciences–Engineering interface
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8292015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34283943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0387
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