Competition Rather Than Observation and Cooperation Facilitates Optimal Motor Planning

Abstract

Humans tend to select motor planning with a high reward and low success compared with motor planning, which has a small reward and high success rate. Previous studies have shown such a risk-seeking property in motor decision tasks. However, it is unclear how to facilitate a shift from risk-seeking to optimal motor planning that maximizes the expected reward. Here, we investigate the effect of interacting with virtual partners/opponents on motor plans since interpersonal interaction has a powerful influence on human perception, action, and cognition. This study compared three types of interactions (competition, cooperation, and observation) and two types of virtual partners/opponents (those engaged in optimal motor planning and those engaged in risk-averse motor planning). As reported in previous studies, the participants took a risky aim point when they performed a motor decision task alone. However, we found that the participant's aim point was significantly modulated when they performed the same task while competing with a risk-averse opponent ( p = 0.018) and that there was no significant difference from the optimal aim point ( p = 0.63). No significant modulation in the aim points was observed during the cooperation and observation tasks. These results highlight the importance of competition for modulating suboptimal decision-making and optimizing motor performance.