How you move shows how you make up your mind

Research on decision making shows making up your mind is a continuous, ongoing process linked to physical movement.

Katie Willis - 11 December 2018

You're standing at a vending machine, ready to punch in the code to get your snack. Even as your hand moves toward the keypad, your brain is still deciding what to do, still in the middle of choosing as your hand touches the keys.

"When we make a decision, we're really choosing between several concrete plans of action and not abstract ideas," explained Nathan Wispinski, graduate student in the Faculty of Science. "Your brain is planning the necessary actions to execute all potential decisions. In fact, you're still deciding when you move, and we can see that because of how you move."

Wispinski is a PhD student co-supervised by Anthony Singhal in the Department of Psychology and Craig Chapman in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation. Through his PhD studies, Wispinski is examining the link between decision making and action, studying the cycle through which decision making influences action while action is simultaneously influencing decision making.

"How we move gives us a lot of clues into how people make decisions," said Wispinski. "For example, decisive choices tend to be a straight movement in one direction. But if we aren't sure, the physical route we take might curve or hesitate. We can use that as an index of the preferences revealed in a movement as it is evolving."

Wispinski studies actions and decision making in the lab, monitoring a participant's physical movements when they select between two objects, as well as measuring brain activity through EEG machines.

Want to make better decisions? Slow down.

You'll make better decisions if you give yourself more time, according to neuroscience student Nathan Wispinski. "One way you can make better decisions is to wait a bit longer," said Wispinski. "That might be a way in which everyday decisions can be improved. It could be as little as a tenth of a second."

Decisions, decisions

"Using this process, we can begin to identify which equations the brain uses to make these types of decisions," he said. "If we can identify these equations, we can develop targeted therapies and interventions for people who have disordered decision making."

Compulsive gambling behaviour is an example of a disordered decision-making process that is impulsive, perseverative, and ineffective. "If we understand exactly what is going wrong, we will be better able to intervene," said Wispinski.

The paper, "Models, movements, and minds: bridging the gap betweendecision making and action," is published in The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience(doi: 10.1111/nyas.13973). Wispinski's research is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship, and by a graduate student scholarship from theAlberta Gambling Research Institute.