Effort-based decision-making and gross motor performance: Are they linked?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between effort-based decision making and gross motor performance. Effort-based decision making was measured using a modified version of the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task in which participants pressed a button on a keyboard to fill a bar on a screen for a monetary reward. Gross motor performance was measured with a walking task in which participants matched their steps to the beat of an audio metronome. We hypothesized that increased effort during the effort-based decision making task would be paired with an increase in steps taken per minute during the gross motor task. However, the results of this study indicated no relationship between the effort-based decision making task and the gross motor task. Planning rather than decision-making may have been the cognitive construct that governed our gross motor task. These findings can be beneficial when thinking about potential interventions for populations who experience deficits in motor performance and cognition as well as for understanding the relationship between both cognitive and motor performance in healthy adults.